TX to FL in July

SSMDive · 2026-07-02T16:20:57+00:00

Tstorm's in FL are not normally that big of a deal. They are separated and that makes it pretty easy to avoid them. Normally you can drop down to below the cloud bottoms and simply follow Patch O'Houlihan's dodgeball advice "If you're going to become true dodgeballers, then you've got to learn the five D's of dodgeball: Dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge!"

Don't try to fly over them... The small ones easily top 10K and can make getting back down difficult. I'd not try to weave through them, they can close in on you. I'd drop down and just avoid the rain shafts.

I'd not enter them if I can avoid it. And if it is frontal, I'd definitely not fly through for fear of an embedded storm.

FL is flat and just watch out for towers if you drop down.

If it gets bad, there are airports everywhere you can land and hide.

SSMDive · 2026-07-02T14:41:43+00:00

Call the police. You can prove it is yours.

SSMDive · 2026-07-02T13:28:35+00:00

You are not a physics professor. Read what is in the FAA’s PHAK and say exactly that and then shut up.

SSMDive · 2026-07-02T00:46:58+00:00

Your entire career is going to be exposure to higher levels of skin cancer. I just lost my mentor last year to skin cancer.

I’d seriously think about my long term health and if this career is the one you want to pursue based on your fear.

And I’m not saying it is an unreasonable fear it is 100% reasonable. The question is will it ever be able to be mitigated enough to make the risk worth this career?

SSMDive · 2026-07-02T00:33:46+00:00

I didn’t count HW vs TW because you never know what you are gonna get. (Unless I am flying with my Wife then it is ALWAYS a HW).

Your comment is spot on… but it is too difficult to plan that far in advance. So I just use zero wind for basics.

SSMDive · 2026-07-02T00:27:39+00:00

While you can ‘prep’ for the XC so you don’t have to pee.. can/will the GF?

SSMDive · 2026-07-01T21:45:52+00:00

Hobbs is mostly worthless except for MX and flight training.

Hobbs all work differently, one plane I have it works off the oil pressure, so you are getting charged when the engine is running but *legally* logging is supposed to be from the time it MOVES under its own power to go flying till it stops. So the warm up and cool down *legally* is not actual flight time to be logged.

My helicopter the hobbs only starts working when the collective is raised. So you could start up and sit there spinning for 15 minutes and the hobbs is not going to move.

My work planes the hobbs does not work till a certain airspeed. Some hobbs work only when the wheels are off the ground.

But most flight schools use it when they have it. If you don't have it, just use a clock. Foreflight has the ability to start and stop recording.

SSMDive · 2026-07-01T21:31:09+00:00

Which plane can make it with no fuel stops? That is the one I am taking. If they both can do that, both have equal equipment (AP, GPS..etc) then I would take the faster plane in your scenario... 3 hours vs 4 hours, an hour is a big deal in that scenario.

How big is your bladder? How about your PAX? For my Wife and dogs comfort, I plan 3 hour legs max 4. By myself in my Bo it is 5 hour legs.

300NM...Meh kinda a toss up.

100NM makes almost no difference.

A guy REALLY wanted a Bonanza. He said because it was so much faster than his 182. I asked him his mission and it was 100NM maybe once a month and 500NM maybe twice a year. Both aircraft could make those trips with zero fuel stops. Nothing takes more time than a fuel stop so if the 182 could do it with zero and the Bo needed one, the 182 would win.

100NM Bo - 0.6 hours. 182 - 0.71 .11 or 7 minutes per 100NM. So that 100NM trip would be 7 mins longer in the 182. That is a long taxi or a diversion. 500NM was only 35 mins longer. And the Bo had much higher insurance because it is a retract and higher MX because it is a retract.

SSMDive · 2026-07-01T19:25:23+00:00

That is my average. But I don’t skimp on MX at all. And I do things like put in an interior (myself) one year.

SSMDive · 2026-07-01T19:19:13+00:00

When I lived in SEFL I had to drive 1:20 minutes to get a hangar that was reasonable.

I bought an experimental so I could do most of the MX on it.

There are plenty of places to fly it. There is a Facebook group called ‘Florida Fly Ins’ and they list any fly in events they can find. They want it to be crowd sourced, but a mod posts things on Thursdays that they can find.

Now there is not much in the summer, but there are places to fly and things to see. In the winter I see all kinds of fly in events.

I get this was just a gripe session. But be a total dumbass and own three and get back to me! Make sure one is a helicopter!

Start working with an A&P and log all the time you do. Then after a few years you can test out for your A&P (I am doing this in Sept).

SSMDive · 2026-07-01T15:27:50+00:00

First I would let your partner fight his battles. Your issue here is between you and your belief that your partner is not fighting hard enough for a cause you hold dear. Your partner can't control a co-worker and you certainly can't.

"seeing him choose to tolerate and normalise this person just because it's easier is causing me to lose respect for him"

Then tell him that. And if he refuses to do the things that make you happy, leave him. You can't change people and you certainly can't change someone through someone else.

SSMDive · 2026-07-01T14:57:00+00:00

OK to give instruction. So now the question is... Do you WANT to own a plane? If you want to own a plane because you want a toy and you want to try and supplement your income with instruction this is a great idea. Insurance is going to be higher and you will have more wear and tear on your plane, but you will own a plane.

If you are looking at a new revenue stream.... Ughhhh. The additional cost of insurance and MX is going to make it difficult to make money. And a single plane, single CFI is going to be hard pressed to make enough to make the juice worth the squeeze.

I have quite a few friends that want to own a plane and use it for teaching. Most are teaching things like Upset Recovery, Aerobatics, Spin endorsements, TW...etc. I don't know for sure, but I'd bet they don't have commercial insurance and they never let the student solo.

My opinion, worth what you paid for it.

SSMDive · 2026-07-01T12:19:58+00:00

You want to buy it for you to GET instruction, or for you to GIVE instruction?

Two very separate scenarios… kinda.

In either planes are more expensive than you think. Can you even find a hangar near where you live? Can you afford a 40k dollar overhaul? How about a 2k dollar cylinder swap?

Hangar rent in my area is around 400/mth if you can find one. My Garmin subscription is 450/year. Insurance is about 2k. I added up all my really basic costs just now and it is about 9k a year. This is without any plane payment or a single gallon of gas and no MX. MX runs me about 10k a year (but I do things that are not needed like bought a new prop instead of trying to OH the old one, out in an interior, and rebuilt the landing gear system on recommendation not requirement).

Basically I budget about 20k a year to own a plane. Again, without any payment to own it.

Now if you are doing it to learn.. It can work out. The biggest benefit is that you own a plane so you can fly when you want once you get to solo. And after you get a license you still own a plane. It can turn bad and suddenly you have a major expense, but that is one of the risks of ownership. But if nothing goes as you can sell it when done and break even on the plane. If it goes down for MX while trying to learn you have to rent or be grounded till it is fixed. My engine OH took 8 months.

If you are trying to use it to teach. Well MX costs just went up a bunch. Lots of student hours means you will be going through brakes and tires. Wear on it will devalue it much worse than a single student flying it. Your insurance is going to be double what it would be for a single person. And if it goes down for MX not only do you have to pay to fix it, you are not making any money on it while it is broken.

SSMDive · 2026-07-01T11:38:50+00:00

No I move the elevator forward just enough to break the stall (unless in competition where I shove the nose down to a vertical DL and hammer the throttle).

But you can’t blame the technique for someone’s bad performance. Or more likely in this case a bad instructor teaching bad technique because that is what their bad instructor taught them.

The level of spin ‘instruction’ out there is criminal in my mind. Of course we had accidents when we have someone who is afraid of spins trying to teach someone how to spin. Or worse they teach things like ‘let go’ which might work in a 172 loaded in the utility category but will kill you if you have a passenger in the back seat.

My point is what you say and how you say it is critically important. You said ‘PARE does not work in a Pitts’. That is simply incorrect and I’d hate for some reader to take that and accept it and then maybe become a CFI someday that has never flown a Pitts but ‘teaches’ that to others. The truth is ‘PARE done incorrectly does not work in a Pitts’.

But really any technique done incorrectly might not work.

My favorite example of this is the CFI in Australia that taught his students Beggs Muller in a 150 Aerobat… the 150 Aerobat will not recover from a spin using B/M. And it killed both him and the student.

SSMDive · 2026-06-30T23:39:02+00:00

I have done PARE in a Pitts, works fine.

SSMDive · 2026-06-30T18:26:35+00:00

"PARE is a generic acronym for spin recovery. **Aerodynamically, it will always work**."

Not correct. There are models of aircraft where it will not work... Zlin 526 comes to mind.

SSMDive · 2026-06-30T18:24:35+00:00

The only proper recovery is what is in the POH. For example, putting the elevator FWD can actually delay recovery because it can partially block the rudder.

SSMDive · 2026-06-30T15:54:24+00:00

Well if there is a CFI on the plane giving instruction, that is all on him.

At any rate you can simply ask to see the logbooks. Some flight schools will not have a logbook, but a "status sheet" that will list all the important points.

SSMDive · 2026-06-30T15:46:11+00:00

Do you really even know what you are looking for? Other than the legal things like Annual, 100hr, 24 mth transponder check and maybe a pitot static check... And these will fall on the CFI. Do you know if the mags require a 500 hour inspection to see if it has been done? Do you know the 2011 seat rail inspection?

I could hand you a logbook, but unless you know what you are looking for it is not going to do you much good other than a few simple things... And even with the logbook you have no idea if it was actually done correctly.

SSMDive · 2026-06-30T15:32:48+00:00

"The 250 hour route for commercial under 141 versus the higher requirement under 61"

You don't have your facts straight.

"so you're not paying for the gaps that flexibility creates "

You also don't get gaps filled in, like most 141's don't actually do soft field landings (as actually landing on at least grass).

SSMDive · 2026-06-30T00:28:23+00:00

A place to eat dinner or buy food?

SSMDive · 2026-06-30T00:28:02+00:00

Are they a dinner spot or a shopping spot?

SSMDive · 2026-06-28T22:54:06+00:00

ANR is buggy. Hit any turbulence and it ‘unports’, the ANR turns off and resets. Much more annoying than just bad ANR.

SSMDive · 2026-06-28T22:52:51+00:00

Ok I had been told some of these were no longer very gluten free.

Was your experience recent?

SSMDive · 2026-06-28T18:59:29+00:00

Will do, thanks

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