Mid atlantic weather

TFaudree_ERAU

TFaudree_ERAU

Mashin' dem buttons
We deadheaded the airplane home from maintenance yesterday. We had some work done to the pressurization system, so I flew right seat in order to run some tests under the direction of the former demo/test pilot that I was flying with. It was a great opportunity to learn the finer points of the system and will hopefully allow me to diagnose any sort of problems that we have in the future. The fact that this pilot knew the system so well helped us diagnose the problem on the way down and saved us the cost of about 5 hours of troubleshooting. That's called paying for yourself.

Anyway, there was a nasty front moving through VA, NC, SC, and GA. I snapped some pictures as we worked our way around them.

Enjoy

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We got bumped around going around the last bit of weather near Manteo and the Outer Banks, but as we got near the VA/NC state line, we were greated with a beautiful sight.
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The guy doing the flying is a former Air America pilot. Here he is showing me an "Air America" approach into ORF. Actually, Air America would have turned final over the numbers.
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Not our airplane, but a Hawker nonetheless. Beautiful sunset with the overhang on the back side of the front.
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Those are some beautiful pics, thanks for sharing. :rawk:

If you don't mind me asking, what type of camera/lens were you using and what settings? Thanks, Mike
 
mdspytko said:
If you don't mind me asking, what type of camera/lens were you using and what settings? Thanks, Mike
Click to expand...

Canon 50D w/ Canon EF-S 10-22mm lens and Canon 430EX flash. All manual settings: Shutter speeds between 1/50 and 1/250 (highest synced shutter speed) and either f/5.6 or f/8, ISO 200. The white headliner in the cockpit makes a GREAT surface on which to bounce the flash, so I rotated the head of the flash to point either straight up or slightly forward to fill the panel with light but not wash out the outside view.
 
Cool pics! We rocketed from charleston to raleigh at 585 indicated yesterday and just barely skated between that sigmet (in the pics) and another moving in from the west. Great view though, glad someone had a camera :rawk:
 
///AMG said:
Cool pics! We rocketed from charleston to raleigh at 585 indicated yesterday and just barely skated between that sigmet (in the pics) and another moving in from the west. Great view though, glad someone had a camera :rawk:
Click to expand...

"585 indicated" as in 585 knots IAS? Or 585 knots GS?
 
When in areas of no VHF radio coverage (limited by line of sight to the ground based station), you have to use HF to communicate. Traditionally, HF radios were full of static and it could be quite tedious to "maintain listening watch" for long periods of time. SELCAL, or SELective CALling, allows ATC to contact you when they wish to give you instructions. The pilots can turn down the volume of the HF radio so they don't have to listen to hours of hissing and crackling that is common to the technology.

Each combination of codes (before and after the dash; in our case GJ and KQ) has a unique sound tone assigned to it. The controller types in the code to their system, the tone is generated, the SELCAL unit in the aircraft receives the tone, registers it as being a signal for that aircraft, and plays a chime in the cockpit and flashes some lights. The pilots turn up the radio and call on HF that they're "answering SELCAL", and business proceeds as usual. When you check on with ATC on HF, you give them your position report, altitude, speed and SELCAL code on the initial contact. They send a test signal to ensure everything is functioning. Once thats done, you can turn down the volume and resume reading your magazine.
 
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