Woman kicked off flight for rant about sitting between ‘two big pigs’

NY Post ^ | 21 January 2019 | Yaron Steinbuch

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

I guess calling them “dead men walking” is right out, then?

[fireman15]

We love Ocala and it is a gorgeous airplane, fast and sleek. It has almost the same paint scheme as our Cherokee... it makes me wonder if they were repainted in the same shop. It already has a pretty decent battle proven panel. Unless it gives you a lot of comfort because you are an airline pilot and you want the same type of electronics as your work plane... I just can’t see bothering with the Garmin panel.

But I do understand completely, I remember when I purchased my first Garmin Aviation GPS, the 95AVD (aviation database). It had a monochrome display that is a third of the size as a typical phone these days. But it was a moving map with special use airspace in the database. It was like a miracle. It cost me $1400 in 1993 which is $2400 today. Today it still works and there are ways to hack in current charts but is worth less than $50.

My friend who was an airline pilot for American Airlines at the time had purchased a competing device that had a better display but Garmin had a much more well thought out user interface. We both had our new devices strapped to the control yokes of his beautiful Commanchee 260B and my wife was sitting in the backseat watching for other traffic while we flew around playing with our new GPS devices. And she protested saying that we were missing the actual experience of flying. But, I have never flown a long trip without a handheld GPS strapped to the control yoke since. These days though I just have an 8” Samsung tablet with aviation software installed.

Buying the Baron reminds me a lot of our next door neighbor. He had a great little Warrior that he used all the time. He sold it for $25,000 and spent over $250,000 on an incredible Mooney that had a bunch of speed mods and even speed brakes to try and slow it down when landing. It also had a new more powerful brand engine installed. His Mooney can cruise at over 250 knots.

So after he had it for a few months he took me for a ride. He was still flying it with white knuckles. After going for the ride I understood why. Our airport is 3,500 feet long with obstructions on both sides. When we came back in he slowed it down as much as he could with his “air brakes” and flaps, and he skimmed the tree tops, but we still weren’t on the ground until we were half way down the runway and still doing over 80 mph. I didn’t want to go up with him again.

So he has had the plane for nearly 20 years and it still scares the poop out of him. I haven’t seen him take it up in years and he told me recently that he was going to sell it and buy another Warrior that his son could learn to fly in. So its back to square one for him.

I started out in ultralights, Cessnas, and vintage airplanes. When we found the Cherokee it was a perfect fit. It didn’t perform as well as a Tripacer but it was made completely out of metal so you could leave it outside without worrying about it. We have had ours hangered since the day we bought it with a fresh paint job, so it is still a beautiful plane. And it is so incredibly easy to handle that it is completely stress free flying. I have no desire to challenge myself with a whole lotta airplane. These days I just want to get from point A to point B with the ability to safely land in basically any cow pasture in between if I have to.

[Bobalu]

I have a love for the Carbon Cub..way too expensive tho.

The plane that scares me is the Aerostar 700 with it's 300mph cruise.

stalls at too high a speed, lands too fast, uses way too much fuel.

Tom Cruse, who holds a multi-engine jet rating flew all his scenes in "American Made" but they went cheap and got two Aerostar 601's cause they look exactly the same.

. Sadly, they crashed one in a stall.. climbing to clear a small mountaintop.....never fly an Aerostar at a slow speed!

The other crash was a controlled crash for the film and tore off the right wing..I saw it up on trade-a-plane for a pittance.

All died in the stall crash :-/

[fireman15]

I am sure whatever you dream of or purchase will be amazing.

To me, once you are flying at over around 5000 feet 150mph feels about the same as 300mph. The slow plane costs a fraction of the price and is much safer in just about every way, especially for an older guy whose reactions are not quite once they once were.

We can make it from our home in the Puget Sound region down to my wife’s sister’s place near Sacramento without a fuel stop in about 6 hours. That is a whole lot faster and less stressful than driving the car and it uses about the same amount of fuel. We can actually fill it with alcohol free auto gas which is available at commercial stations up here. That is good enough for us.