so, is my answer to this question really that bad? aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/11271/…

i just got the site self-evaluation. in two of the questions, my answer had the most votes and was the accepted answer. weird

@rbp Why weird?

The evaluation also contains how good the Qs and As can be.

@Farhan you would think the evaluation system wouldn't give me questions in which I was a partipant, let alone the accepted answer

Everyone gets the same questions so there can be some consensus on them.

I was sad that none of my questions/answers were good enough to depict this site's quality.

@foo

@fooot i see

@Farhan I think yours didn't get included because they were obviously too good, even to a machine

@rbp I think you are trying to make me feel good on a Monday.

It might be working ;)

@Farhan good. now go fly!

@rbp I don't think it's bad, but I do think it's a bit incomplete for a controlled field. Generally if a tower tells me "Enter left downwind for runway XX" I'll fly a standard pattern with a 45-degree entry if it makes sense from where I am because that's what they're probably expecting me to do, but if they tell me to do that when I'm on the opposite side of the runway I'd ask for clarification.

@voretaq7 did you read my the edit I made today?

@rbp nope :P

does it still seem incomplete

@rbp it's better - the only thing I'd add is "If you have any question about what ATC expects you to do you should ask them"

@voretaq7 fair enough. i guess I could add that to any ATC-type question, just for good measure

@rbp I include it pretty much out of reflex on any "What am I supposed to do if ATC says blah?" type questions - it's so easy to just key the mic and say "I've got no clue what you want me to do - help me out here!"

In this particular case, the horrible case with the student pilot at KFMY a couple of years back could be a fitting example.

@voretaq7 to me, its like adding a 91.13 warning to any "can I do this ..." quesiton

@rbp "You can do anything you want… ONCE . "

@voretaq7 Very true, but a lot of ATC/radio questions here and on other sites have some comment like "I know ATC should tell me, but what if they don't?" It often surprises me how reluctant some pilots are to just ask.

freakin' markdown...

@Pondlife I've always taken the approach that I'd rather key the mic and sound dumb than not do it and either get yelled at for being dumb or worse smack into another plane.

+1 @voretaq7

@voretaq7 Absolutely, I can live with being stupid but I can't live with being dead :-)

ah, here it is

liveatc.net/forums/atcaviation-audio-clips/…

@Pondlife "I've been dead. It wasn't fun. I'd rather not repeat the experience."

after landing on my first studen solo cross country, i heard "94lima, please exit the runway, there's a 737 on final"

i was still catching my breath

@rbp What LSA are you looking at buying?

dunno yet. i am going to go the sebring LSA show next month to look arouind

If you're going for a taildragger you can't go wrong with the Cub-alikes :)

agreed, and I have a lot of 7ECA time

a little Husky time, one flight in a J-3, and ASES in a super cub

BUT -- i would love to have side-by-side seating

sucks that the Carbon Cub 180 is limited into the LSA category (though if you're looking for an LSA I guess that's fine :P)

also the cub-alikes are pricey because of the O-200

instead of the rotax

I like the Aerotrek because its side-by-side. and the Phoenix is a glider that can be fitted with 15m wingtips

motorglider

the Phoenix looks pretty nice

I'm still very disappointed in the LSA market - I was expecting to see 50-60k cub-alikes or wannabe tri-pacers

instead there are $150k Skycatchers (which, granted, is a lot less than a new 172, but still!)

its the O-200

drives the price up.

I'm also not-so-secretly angry at Cessna for not re-introducing the 152.

@rbp Does Continental offer "uncertified" versions of their engines? I know you can buy an uncertified O-320 from Lycoming (ostensibly to stick on an airboat)...

an o-200 is about $30K

don't know if there's an uncertified one

@rbp A 912ULS is just shy of 20k new last time I looked :-/

@voretaq7 aren't you in New York? i'm gonna hangar at Linden. do you wanna go halfsies?

@rbp LDJ? A bit too far to commute to, but I might come visit you :)

where are you?

oh FRG -- yeah, a little far

@rbp FRG is a convenient 15-30 minute drive depending on traffic :P

(though I could get a hangar at HWV for what I'm paying for a tiedown at FRG... such temptation, much driving though :-/)

i'm 20 miles from linden, much easier than caldwell. don't like caldwell anyway. i have had too many problems with the controllers there

they stuck me on long downwind behind a 152 doing 70. i just can't do 70.

@rbp I can, I just don't want to...

Vs1 is 67!

@rbp That's why god made flaps! :P

and spoilers

and drag chutes

and "Fuck it I'll just learn to fly a helicopter so I can hover too!"

it has speedbrakes, but they don't work at low speeds. you can even land with them.

to fly straight & level with full flaps, it needs 22" of MP

instead of 17

I'm sure the engine doesn't mind. "Cylinder heads glowing red is perfectly normal!"

heh

anyway, i don't like caldwell for just that reason

BTW @Farhan Re: The pinned thing about changing airport name to get more traffic, as I understand it that's why Jabara airport got KAAO as their identifier (so they'd show up first when people hit "NEAREST" in the GPS to find fuel). Not quite sure if Higdon was joking about that, but I could picture it being a legitimate consideration

@rbp I have a love/hate relationship with Republic. On the one hand there's a bunch of great people at the flight school, the guys at SheltAir are great when I need stuff, and the controllers haven't tried to kill me in a good while (though granted I haven't been flying in a good while).

never been in there myself. just FOK

On the other hand there's the occasional bad day where you spend 30 minutes circling trying to get their attention so you can come back and land (or worse, spend 30 minutes idling waiting in line to get to the runway)

It's just like FOK... except with traffic :P

(and a $2.50 landing fee)

even for locals?

yup

@falstro where is the audio that discussion relates to? I can't see a link

the traffic at FOK often includes C130s, which is dicey in a glider

@DanHulme the chicago incursion? its in the first line

I don't really mind the $2.50 - I'd complain at $5 or above if they don't exempt based aircraft.

as long as you're not learning touch and goes in a tailwheel...

my plan is to buy an LSA before the summer, fly it to OSH in august

@rbp I don't know that I'll have my skills up to Oshkosh standards (or at least what I would consider oshkosh standards) for 2015, but I'm eagerly awaiting the AOPA fly-in list for 2015 seeing as how I missed the 2014 flying season

what do you mean "have my skills up to Oshkosh standards"?

you mean for the NOTAM?

being able to land on in sequence, etc?

mostly drilling the spot landings - there's really nothing else "hard" about the arrival from what I've read of the previous years' NOTAMs

I'm still not seeing it.

I've no doubt that I could land on the appropriately-colored dot upwards of 90% of the time, but I'd like to be confident I could do it upwards of 99% of the time.

I would be mightily disappointed in myself if I botched a landing at Oshkosh :P

@voretaq7 at $2.50 a pop, I wouldn't have the confidence either!

@rbp It hurts less when you write the state a cheque for 50 landings at a time :P

"Here's $125. Leave me the hell alone for a few months, OK?!"

And hey I could always do landing practice at HWV since they've abolished the landing fee they never seemed to remember to charge people as of January 1 :P

@rbp BTW Re: your LSA engine safety question: aviationsafetymagazine.com/airplane/LSA-Engine-Safety.html

@voretaq7 my kid spotlanding the mooney flickr.com/photos/richsnyder/19642911

I'd want to find something with more statistical information than that though :P

@DanHulme the link I posted to liveatc? you need to be logged in to download clips

(it's free, just create an account)

@rbp Do you live in NJ?

@voretaq7 I read about that in AOPA daily email newsletter

@falstro nah, since it doesn't work in the UK anyway I don't think I'll bother

@rbp I initially thought you are in California.

@Farhan did most of my flying there

unfortunately, the mooney and the T-6 are both there, as well :(

@DanHulme how's that? it works fine in the UK

there just aren't any UK feeds

yes, that's what I meant

listening to US ATC doesn't really seem interesting

@DanHulme You could listen to Irish ATC if you want something a bit closer to home

I'm sure there's an Irish joke to make there

when you depart an Irish aerodrome you have to get on the radio and call Approach

(yes, I know, before you make the obvious comment)

@DanHulme They have one thing going for them: they're the only controllers who correctly pronounce "three" as "tree" on the radio

@falstro That's because the UK has some... "interesting" radio laws.

@Pondlife lol

@voretaq7 I know, Germany is just as bad.

@DanHulme there's a bunch of non-US ATC, just no UK or German.

@falstro maybe if I ever fly outside the UK I will sign up

@DanHulme LiveATC is a very valuable resource regardless whether it's local ATC or not, I learned a lot more from there than any FI in Germany could ever teach me (not to mention that Germans, as a rule, suck at English). Sure I'll occasionally say "airport" instead of "aerodrome" (dafuq's up with that anyway?) and little things like that ("pattern" instead of "circuit" is another example), but most of the English language vocabulary is pretty international.

but what it'll really teach you is how to pick up on what the people are really saying; it takes a while to get used to, but eventually you'll start to listen along like it's second nature. If all your comms experience is in the aircraft, it'll be a whole lot tougher.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you want to do this right, go and listen to LiveATC. ;)

@DanHulme @falstro The other thing that listening to ATC does is teach you how to negotiate with controllers for what you want.

(or don't want)

@DanHulme @falstro @rbp This YouTube channel has transcripts of different types of incidents captured from LiveATC.

@Farhan You'll find a bunch of them in the LiveATC forums as well

just to be clear, my point was listening to normal ATC, not abnormal :)

@falstro When I listen to LiveATC.com, it is like a long silence, then a little talking, then long silence and so on.

... and it is at JFK or PHL etc.

and they should be busy during the days or evenings

@Farhan depends on the feed you're listening too, take NY approach and it'll keep you busy :)

but yeah, that's ATC for you

I keep it running in the background when working

@falstro Long hours of boredom punctuated by long hours in a holding pattern because there was a fuel spill on the runway?

incidentally that's closer to the situation you have when flying; you're busy doing all kinds of important stuff and all of a sudden someone starts shouting through your headset and you need to figure out if that was for you :)

@voretaq7 or that :)

@falstro I always clicked on ARINC (JFK/LGA Area) which is the first link

this page: liveatc.net/search/?icao=jfk

Now it's not even connecting ;(

@falstro It's never for me. The last time I decided to get flight following they literally forgot all about me until I said I was starting my descent :P

"Smack the transponder with a blunt object and make it turn on"

JFK ground is having some fun :)

@Farhan I usually go for KFMY; they're a small class D airport but have plenty of flight school traffic and pattern work, so maybe a tad boring if you're looking for 'exciting' stuff, but good for students

Also, check the weather. Good weather is bound to bring a lot more VFR traffic too

Their app is for $2.99

This is $2.98 more than I want to spend.

@Farhan 1) you don't need to buy it, it'll work fine from your mobile browser; and 2) it's a very small donation for an excellent service.