Took  a little ride with the guys after work today to have a look at the airport where I'm hoping to do my flight review...

I was pretty upset last night when the Taurus I had reserved turned up missing at the rental lot at the airport... really upset when I had to wait about 10  minutes to find out what the deal was... but very happy when they gave me this, at no extra charge...mwahaha...

Not a real Mustang, of course, but it does OK with its 4-liter six-banger. Rides real nice, too.

     



The airport is Brown Field Muni, out on the eastern fringes of San Diego. Here's a (bad) pic of the ramp from the stairs leading to the office of the school that will handle my BFR.

     


Decided to add a little twist this time- I'm going to try to do my BFR-and get my tailwheel endorsement- in this little sweetheart: a 1947 Aerona Champ, which the staff here refers to as "the Airknocker".

Note the generator; this puppy has no alternator... or battery. I may also be getting a lesson in hand-propping.
I spoke to the CFI on the phone: he's an ex-Navy pilot who's been teaching people to fly in this airplane you see here for about 40 years. I figure if he can't teach me to dance, I may as well forget about taildraggers.

$55/hr. wet time, BTW... the instructor mentioned it was about $5.50/hr when he first started flying it 40 years ago, but it's still a bargain.

Best of all: believe it or not, if I pass muster, they will let me rent this thing solo. That would be cool.

     

I may get a good panel shot later, but for now, just in case, here's a look: it has a radio and a Mode C tx, but no DG or artificial horizon.  The fabric, etc. looks really good- I may ask to look at the service logs later, but I got a real good feeling talking to these old-school desert fliers, and I trust them.

Wish me luck!

Oh boy... are  Y O U  gonna have fun !    


(pray for a stiff x-wind)

Brett_Henderson wrote on Aug 21^st, 2007 at 10:44pm:


God, I hope not... Brown is HUGE... lots of open space. Which is good, elbow-room-wise... but I'm sure the wind really gets going there.

Nice, looks like loads of fun.

beaky wrote on Aug 21^st, 2007 at 11:10pm:



But, but, but ... without wind, tail-wheel flying isn't much different than a trike with view issues.. 

so I'm jealous!

beaky wrote on Aug 21^st, 2007 at 10:29pm:

A real aeroplane. Now you're talking. Not that you'll need it but Good Luck anyway.

bok269 wrote on Aug 22^nd, 2007 at 1:51pm:




BFR is a review required of every active holder of a US pilot certificate at least every two years. The flight review consists of at least 1 hour of ground instruction and 1 hour in-flight with a qualified instructor.

Before being able to act as pilot-in-command (PIC) a pilot must have completed a flight review within the previous 24 calendar months