Hey honey, we bought an airplane
That's nice dear.
As I mentioned, the syndicate found me. They currently have seven members and I was to replace the last remaining original member who had purchased a Jabiru in recent times.
The plane is a Cessna 172M, always hangared and is in great condition.
Along with the usual items found in general aviation aircraft, this one has:
- Aux Tanks
- Two NavCom's
- Two ADF's
- Two GPS's
One of the GPS' is TSO'd (GNC 300XL), which means it is certified for IFR. The other GPS is a old portable Garmin GPS 95 which has been attached to the instrument panel. I also have my Garmin GPSMap 296. I bought it not long after Garmin released the GPSMap 496, seeing as the price for the 296 came down considerably being twice superceded and all.
The GPSMap 296 greatly enhances awareness during VFR flight and it certainly helps reduce the cockpit workload especially when you are skirting near airspace boundaries. A bonus is that my flight planning software can communicate with the GPS to upload my flight plans and waypoints.
The flight planning software was only a recent addition to my "flight bag". It will help me plan the bigger trips since you can view and overlay multiple maps at the same time.When you have finished planning within the software, it can submit the flight plan, provide fuel logs, a passenger route guide (keeps them occupied and feeling like a co-pilot) and overlay notes on the pertinent areas of the charts you require such as frequency changes or altitude planning. All of these things further help to reduce cockpit workload for the pilot, which is a good thing.
That being said, I still ensure I am no stranger to old school flight planning. Give me a chart, compass, plotter, pencil and a timepiece and I can navigate to you to any location. We can sort out the wind correction, groundspeed and ETA's whilst flying.
The additional auxiliary tanks provide roughly 6.5 hours endurance. My bladder may not last that long at times, but it is good to know I can take 2.8 people a long distance without re-fuelling. It will be very suited to some of the long trips I would like to make.
One of those long trips involves George, a work colleague from the west coast of Australia. We will be planning a trip to the centre of Australia to visit Uluru among other things. George also has his pilot’s license and seeing as I'm over in Perth for Christmas this year, George and I can go somewhere quiet and plan that trip.
Awesome, I now have my own plane, the only down side is that I still want to build a plane. I think I can put that off for at least five more years, maybe less.
