Two Pilots & an LSW: Conquering the Conquest

I’m sitting here in Meridian, Mississippi. I should be sleeping, but 1) they only have chairs that sit bolt upright, 2) down south they always keep their air conditioning set to “Eskimo preserving their fish” levels, and 3) my mind is running around too much on everything I haven’t gotten done lately to be able to wind down and relax. So I sit here in the lounge having to go to the bathroom but too cold to get up and actually do it. And it’s 91 and muggy outside so I don’t want to go there either. :p

Man, where to start. It’s only been a few days but it’s been a non-stop whirlwind and I’m not even sure I remember everything.

The Conquest finally arrived, and I see in a previous post I spelled out what the schedule was going to be. I won’t repeat it all then, because it pretty much went exactly like that. For once, everything really did go as planned. Bill the pilot arrived on time. We left at 11:45 am, right on time, and Bill let me do the flying. It was almost 4 hours down to Navasota, Texas. Most of it was on autopilot, but I did hand fly until I got up to like FL250 or so. He kept asking if I wanted the autopilot on, and I kept saying no, I want to get a feel for the plane first. Autopilots fail, don’t want the pilot to ‘fail’ too. Seemed pretty straight forward of a plane, but none of the checklists are great. One is way too involved and has too much info. One is too shortened and doesn’t have enough info. I wish they’d just make a useful checklist with what you need to not forget anything important but not have War & Peace to wade through to get anywhere.

When we got to Navasota, the instructor did our ground school. He kept it pretty short, and I brought up a couple things I thought were important that I’d gotten from reading through the manuals. He said he’d get us a good manual/info to read through as well. Normally I like not having a difficult training thing on airplanes I already know, but I actually wouldn’t have minded having a little more in depth ground school on this plane, as I don’t know it. So I’m glad I read through the material, and I will do some more studying on it now that I’ve actually flown it some and have some basis for knowing what I’m reading about.

Next up was the flying. We went out for about an hour, and all we really did were steep turns, two approaches that he plugged into the box for me, a no flap landing, and a normal landing. Again…I could have used a little more practice. He said I was fine, and I was fine, but I’ll be going back up on my own to do some autopilot coupled approaches, and I won’t be taking the plane low IFR until I get more time in it and get the chance to practice a few more approaches in it. Both Bill and Mark would reach over and do things for me while they were training me. I can’t stand that, because if you’re doing it, I don’t know what you did, when or why most of the time. So the first time I went to start up the plane myself after the checkout, I got a hung start on it, because unlike the Cheyenne, you have to pull the “condition levers” up and back into a different gate instead of just pulling them back. So they weren’t in the right “gate”, but everybody had been doing that for me while I was still on the runway (I also don’t touch stuff on the runway), so I didn’t actually know how to do it myself. Same with the ground fan/pressurization system. They assumed and they kept doing it for me, and I didn’t know which control did what and how to shut it off before shutting down once they got out. If you want to be a good instructor, keep your grubby paws off of shit and tell people what to do so they can learn it for themselves. So from that front, not the best checkout I’ve ever gotten. However, both pilots were very experienced pilots in the plane and had excellent real world tips on operation that I appreciated knowing, so THAT was good. And I’m neither new nor lazy about flying, so I will continue to do my due diligence to make sure I’m a professional and safe operator of the airplane. It’s less power than the Cheyenne, doesn’t go as high or as fast, it’s easy to manage, the systems are pretty simple, it’s not too bad, and it’s highly efficient. Love the fuel burn for the speed you do get. All in all, I like it.

The rest of the schedule did go like clockwork. We dropped Bill off in S. Dakota, and it was another 4 hour flight up there. Got gas, and Ethan and I headed out by ourselves, for my first official flight in it, to head home. We landed in Frankfort around 1:30 am, and one of the airport workers came out and helped us put it away in the middle of the night like that, even after Ethan told him not to bother. So Ethan gave him $100 tip. He did go above and beyond as he then slept on the couch and had to be out there at 6 am for another person’s departure!

When I left there, it was after 1:30 am, and last week the police were out hard in Frankfort, and I got pulled over for rolling a stop and speeding, both of which I did, but not badly in either case. So this time I put my cruise control on to follow the speed limits and came to a full stop at every stop sign. I got pulled over in the exact same spot. This time I was just annoyed, because they do that “blind you with the spotlight” trick trying to make you panic and look drunk and destroy your night vision even if you’re not drunk. And because I’d been doing everything right. You know how hard it is to make my car do 30 mph?? I literally have to use the cruise control feature or I can’t do it. He said he pulled me over for doing 40 in a 30. I just looked at him, so he described to me where that was. I’m not from here, I don’t know where that was, but I do know I would hit the 30 mph zones and immediately cruise control down to 30 mph. So I just looked at him again. He asked me what I was doing, I said driving home from the airport. He asked where I went, I said a quick trip to Texas and S. Dakota and back. He said “Texas? You bringing any drugs back?” Um, no. Then he asked if I had anyone stashed in the car, back seat, etc., and I was like…no…dude… He gave me a written warning this time, and finally left me to my devices, but I was really, really tired, and already past annoyed, and didn’t deserve that stop, especially when he and I both knew I decelerated to 30 mph right as I got to the zone. He was just checking on me because of my car, dark windows, and 1:30 am. I may have to skip going through town from now on and go the back roads, even if it takes longer. I’ve had about enough of that.

I pulled into my driveway around 2:40 am, went inside, and Steve was still awake waiting for me. We talked for a few minutes and then I crashed around 3 am, waking up at an unfortunate 8 am, to start the next day.

The next day involved driving back to Frankfort, and getting in the Conquest with Ethan and Tell, and flying them to Gunnison, Colorado, for our first official trip in the airplane. It was an uneventful trip until the last hour. Suddenly the autopilot started wandering. It didn’t matter if it was in heading mode or nav mode, it would randomly bank over. We then hit some pretty good turbulence clearing some storms. So I’m left hand flying, forcing over the autopilot, into the clouds, around the weather, in pretty bad turbulence, in the mountains, coming in to land at Gunnison with 25 knot winds. And THAT, Mr. Checkout Fellow, is why I want to hand fly an airplane until I get to know it. My landing was lovely, thank you. ;)

I checked fuel levels, and I could almost get all the way back home without even filling up. Can’t beat that efficiency, not in the Cheyenne. But we put 60 gallons per side in, and I took back off and headed for the last 3-4 hour flight leg home. The weather was better, didn’t have the turbulence this time, and it was my first time in the plane all by myself, which I liked, because I could do things at my own pace and without people still trying to ‘help’. But I was tired, and it was another long day, and the last 1.5 hours of that flight, the autopilot started acting up again. So I’m at 31,000’ at RVSM altitudes where autopilot is required, and it would start to bank, and I’d muscle it back in place, and I did that every few seconds for an hour and a half. It was tiring. And I was already tired. I had 12.7 hours in the plane the day before, and what ended up being about 8 hours in the plane today. By the time I landed at Frankfort after 9 pm, a friend was up in another airplane and heard me call in on the radio and said “You sound tired”. I was. That was it for me for the day. If I’d have had one more leg, I’d have had to get a hotel room. I parked the plane in front of the hangar and left it there for the airport guy to top off and put away whenever he got there, and then I drove home, very slowly, not speeding, at 30 mph in the 30 mph zones, and got home around 10:30 pm.

I was originally supposed to be leaving for Mississippi at 7 am in the 340. Ethan said he owned D a trip and I could take the Conquest if we wanted to. It’s 3 hours in the 340, 1 hour 40 minutes in the Conquest. I asked D, and he was happy to drive to Frankfort to do that. So we left Frankfort at 7:30 in the morning to go to Meridian, Mississippi. To be at Frankfort by 7:15, I had to leave by 6:20 am, which meant I had to get up at 5:30 am. I didn’t get to bed until after 11:30 because I didn’t get HOME until after 10:30, and I had to do a few things. I got about 5 hours of sleep. Ergo why I was hoping to nap in the pilot’s lounge today, which alas is not conducive for doing so.

Now you’re caught up, as I sit in the pilot’s lounge and wait to hear from D on when we’re heading back. If it works out, I’m going to be landing in Frankfort around 5 pm in the Conquest, picking up the 340, taking it to Ohio, dropping it off at the mechanic’s place, getting a ride home from one of our people in the RG, who will drop me off back at FKR to pick up my car, so I can drive home, late-ish again.

Tomorrow is supposed to be back to Colorado to pick up Ethan and Tell. Then Thursday is still NYC to pick up Kevin. I’m going to figure out how many states I’ve flown over and landed in over this 5 day period. It may be a record of some sorts.