[Bernie]

The first time I saw the Skywagon user name it was obvious there was another interest than a Prevost.

[Art]

John, where’s the nose wheel?

[Tom]

It’s where it belongs, on the tail.

Just like a manual transmission has become a theft deterrent for a car, a tail wheel is the ultimate plane security system.

I also suspect a plane with round dials and no GPS is well protected from pilots who like to look at glass screens and magenta lines because they have zero positional awareness.

[AL]

Yep, good ole steam gauges and position by VOR radials. I thought I was a big dog when I got LORAN C and later DME the size of a 56 Chevy radio with needle display. I know, shows age.

[Archived]

My dream panel included a second ADF.

[DON]

For my ATP I had to demonstrate NDB holds with a single ADF.

[Archived]

Jon, Tom said you had to fly the Range, A and N , no needles to confuse you.

[Dick]

time, turn, tune, throttle, talk, 🙂

[Mark]

Jon … you have an ATP license? I’m more in awe of you than I was before.

[John]

Yes I have an ATP.

I was flying in really shitty weather out of Jamestown NY (KJHW) and had to deal with a whole lot of approaches to minimums and significant icing potential due to the proximity to Lake Erie so I thought an ATP was a good opportunity to learn to fly like a real pilot.

It was a good experience because I did not need it, had nothing to lose trying, and the examiner was in FL and within 5 minutes he said “you’ve flown on instruments a lot”. We talked about my motivation, and then he said he was sick of flying with pilots who needed an ATP, but spent 1500 hours flying right seat in a Cessna 152 teaching students, and only at 1400 hours began practicing IFR flying.

He pushed me into a lot of procedures he admitted he did not have to do, but he treated the test flight as something the two of us were doing for fun.

I later found out my anal attitude was the most valuable way I could keep my skills high. Despite a real capable autopilot, a well equipped panel with things like dual HSIs and flight director I did the best thing I could have ever done. The autopilot was only on at altitude. I never used it for climbs, descents, and approaches. I got beat up by other pilots whose attitude was to use the AP because it was more accurate and better than any pilot, but hand flying became second nature and learning how to deal with ice despite the plane being certified for flight into icing made me feel very comfortable flying. In Pilots N Paws I was the guy who did the animal rescue flight when the weather was on the ground.

I never flew behind a glass panel in a real plane but have about 10 hours in sims, some in a Northwest 757 / 767 and some in a FedEx MD11.