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News: March 17, 2004

Mike Dwyer Q-200

Hi I'm Mike, I fly a Quickie Q-200

New year resolution, more flight reports....

Maybe you feel the way I do, we need more flying reports! For all you wana bees, slaving away (or piddling at) your kit plane, the flying reports might be the kick in the pants you need!

So here is my flight report (hey, anybody claim the first Q flight of the new year?

Jan 2, 2004: 12 pm EST. PIE thru Class B Tampa to LAL.
see http://www.airnav.com/airport/KPIE

The Q200 was carefully preflighted, wind 070 at 8, vis 4 mi in haze. 76 degrees F OAT (that is correct ... nice Florida day). Haven't had to do any work on the Q for several months, the brakes used to be the sore point but since changing to the Larue(sp?) they are working fine. Because Tampa is a class B and PIE is only 9 miles away and under the Class B, I call clearance delivery and tell them where I want to go and that I have information Romeo. I get back from them "cleared to enter the class B, after takeoff heading 350, climb to at or below 1600 feet, Tampa Approach 125.3, squawk 0140. Then ground control clears me to runway 35 at Mike. That's the big runway and I see a 757 taxing for the same runway on the other side of the airport... Well, I gotta warm up anyway, I always get 100F oil before taking off, so my delay may just work out. Wake turbulence from that heavy wouldn't be fun. I often wonder what the people that are looking out the window of that heavy think when this little plastic plane taxis by... Runup normal, taxi to the hold point and wait for a break in the radio to call the tower. That heavy is just now lifting off about 5000' down the runway. Some Cessna is cleared to take off from a point down the runway and another plane calls ready at the same intersection I'm at but on the other side of the runway. The tower doesn't hear him so after 30 sec I call ready and the tower tells me "position and hold for another departure on the runway" that Cessna I see is 1000' ahead of me sitting on the runway.

The Cessna is launched and in a short time the tower clears me with the note that the Cessna is also North bound. I assume he isn't talking to Tampa so needs to stay below 1000'. Off I go trying to keep an eye on that Cessna. As I go thru 1000' I am above the Cessna, at 120 mph, and climbing at about 1300 FPM, I lose him as he's now under me. Not too worried cause I never saw a Cessna Climb at that rate anyway. PIE tells me to contact Tampa. So over to 125.3. They clear me to 2100 so I keep going up. Level off at 2100 then Tampa calls and says go to 2600. No problem, I was gaining speed after leveling off the extra 500 foot climb takes about 10 seconds. Tampa lands the Jets on parallel North-South runways and has a runway 9 in the center. They always have you cross over RWY 9. Usually East bound traffic like me is given 2100 feet, at the time I didn't know why they wanted me at 2600 but it was a pretty day. Maybe 25 mile visibility so I didn't care. Then I hear that another airplane is crossing Tampa from the East and they are at 2100. I never see him. Looking down head on it is impossible! Over the top of Tampa they switch me to another controller and in a few minutes I'm on the edge of the Class B and have Lakeland in sight. I ask to terminate radar services and they give me the "good day squawk 1200". 10 miles West of LAL 2500 feet up (basically over Plant City airport) I call LAL tower and get a clearance. LAL says "Welcome back, Straight in RWY 9 report the smoke stacks" They know I'm a fast Quickie. Then a Cessna calls in from the West. LAL asks for his DME to LAL and the Cessna pilot doesn't get it. Doesn't seem to know what a DME is. So after a few exchanges LAL says, your position, your gps distance, how far away are you.... Finally LAL figures out that he is about 10 out. And calls me for a position report. 5.2 miles out. Then in a few seconds reported the smoke stacks at 3.5 mi out. LAL says cleared to land but I'm still way too fast, like 170 mph. I don't want to over cool the engine but I'd like to land so I slowly pull off the power and get down to 100 mph. Perfect landing about 2000 feet down RWY 9, planned so I could make the turn off I wanted. The tower has me contact ground and I ask to go to the restaurant.

Years ago there was always a bunch of nice show planes parked in front of the restaurant. Today, now more the typical, I'm the only cool plane. No experimentals, no warbirds... bummer. Tony's restaurant has been re-done and is on the second floor of the terminal building now. You need to reserve a window seat cause all the locals go there to watch airplane and I just never get a window seat! I guess it is good that the locals like their airport but I think Tony needs to reserve some window seats for pilots that fly in!

Almost the entire trip to LAL was under control. The enjoyable part of a trip like this is that if you can do it without having a controller yell at you then you did good! Today was a good day but not to push my luck we flew back to PIE around Tampa to the north. Down the beaches and back home with another perfect landing. Was a good day to have a flying Q bird, so ...... GET YOURS DONE!

Mike Q-200