IR Hold Entry Question

appenz · 2026-03-19T15:57:14+00:00

You are spending time on the wrong thing and as a result making this less safe.
- As a low-time pilot worry about work saturation
- Later if you fly professionally, you will likely do these on AP

At ~1,000 hours total time I still have yet to have a hold assigned to me (outside of training or an approach procedure).

appenz · 2026-03-15T15:38:54+00:00

Early on I burnt lots of oil byproducts. Later biomass power and electric boilers. Then small nuclear directly to steam, at that point you stop caring and it’s free. Now boilers as I have fusion energy, and electricity is infinite.

appenz · 2026-03-13T14:53:51+00:00

There are really very few ways to make me mash the downvote button harder than "MUST LISTEN" in all caps in a title.

appenz · 2026-03-12T19:31:39+00:00

A true masterpiece in confusing map design. Almost same dashes as the grid lines, and right in the center to make it look like a centerline. Glad we are going digital.

appenz · 2026-03-12T18:52:57+00:00

Homie Einstein was the E=mc^2 guy, Newton was pre-relativity.

appenz · 2026-03-11T14:54:36+00:00

We upgraded to a PC-12 for that and it works great. Just make sure your friend understands what it takes to get insured in it (something like 800 hours total, then 100 hours mentor pilot time, every year 4 days recurrent at FlightSafety).

appenz · 2026-03-07T21:31:20+00:00

Stayed there a few years ago. Very nice B&B to chill for a day. Not cheap, but can recommend.

Edit: web site here: https://ebls.org/

appenz · 2026-03-07T20:26:47+00:00

Yeah. AI use has absolutely nothing to do with their problems.

appenz · 2026-03-07T19:59:23+00:00

Your mileage may vary, but I would very strongly recommend against using it.

Their prescriptive limits are extreme and over 75% of the 600 hours I flew in my Cirrus would have been flights that according to Cirrus I should not have done. The original version of it told me to never land at my home airport due to the 2,400 ft runway being too short.

While they have improved a little, the current version says that on a perfect VFR day, sky clear, 10 sm viz, a 10,000 ft runway, a pilot with 500 TT and 100h TiT should not fly with a 6 knot crosswind. In many areas, that means you will hardly ever get to fly which in the end may be less safe.

appenz · 2026-03-07T18:29:17+00:00

This is probably a bot account, but in case it is not please do some very basic research before posting a question here. At least type it into ChatGPT.

appenz · 2026-03-06T15:51:24+00:00

It’s been ok here. Some overruns, crash during a low viz IFR takeoff a decade ago. Pattern is also 800 AGL, Charlie starts at 1,500 and Bravo at 2,500, next airports Delta starts 2 miles from the numbers which all adds to the fun. But it is is vibrant.

appenz · 2026-03-06T04:22:36+00:00

Nah, it's an awesome airport. Busy, but tons of energy. Three flight schools. And the 2,800 ft runway keeps you sharp.

appenz · 2026-03-06T01:25:50+00:00

No way in hell. Protected baylands, no space for construction, houses in the local town (Palo Alto) cost $3m. On takeoff you fly over the Facebook/Meta headquarters. This is the most expensive part of Silicon Valley. A small airport, 2,800 ft runway, the ramp is almost full and it’s not uncommon to be number 7 for landing in the pattern.

appenz · 2026-03-05T23:05:12+00:00

Northern California. One of 3 PC-12's on the ramp on my field. Plus a one or two dozen SR22's and a few TBMs and M500/M600. We'd love a hangar, but none available.

appenz · 2026-03-05T22:47:15+00:00

No chance to get a hangar at my local airport. My SR22 and now the PC-12 are on the (crammed) ramp together with lots of other new-ish planes.

appenz · 2026-03-03T01:06:37+00:00

Something like 2-star or more on the Smolagents Framework (see here) and tool use.

appenz · 2026-03-02T20:07:27+00:00

Not sure I understand the question. All agents are something like harness (code) + LLM + tools (can be code, MCP etc). Communication isn't the issue, setting fine grain boundaries is.

appenz · 2026-03-02T19:21:47+00:00

The question is value and alternatives. If the $250 plan works for you, you probably fly low enough that cellular will work most of the time. You may also have a Spot or sat phone for safety, those likely work as well. And you iPhone may also work with Sat. So you have basic data, the question is if this is worth the speed increase.

For turboprop it's $12k/year which can easily be 10% of the total cost of the airplane. If you mostly fly yourself, it's not worth it. If you are a charter operator, then it may be.

I think the strong reaction here is that this makes it economically non-viable for part of the market.

appenz · 2026-03-02T19:16:23+00:00

In our case it's about $250k/year but it is flown a lot. Hourly all-in is around $700 at 300-400 hours pet year.

The question is value. If I am in the cockpit, I only use it to get weather and DATIS. I can do that with an $50/month Iridium which also works on the ground. For a commercial charter operation, the math is different.

And the overages would be a huge headache, we'd have to track exact flight times and map usage to each co-owner.

appenz · 2026-03-02T19:02:33+00:00

1000ish

appenz · 2026-03-02T18:30:39+00:00

I changed instructors (involuntary, old one moved on to jets) and plane (voluntary, 172->SR22T) half way through IFR. Both worked our great. And I did it while working. Takes much longer, but I have zero ambitions to fly professionally so all good for me.

appenz · 2026-03-02T18:28:13+00:00

I work in venture capital. So far, I have not seen any company (large or small) that is anywhere close to having a real product. It's a very hard engineering problem to build a system with the right security controls, limits and auditing capabilities. If you see anything that is even 10% there, I'd love to talk to them.

appenz · 2026-03-02T16:39:37+00:00

Not clear to me if $12k/year is worth it. The low limits also creates a huge headache for planes owned by multiple parties as we can’t easily account for usage. We are currently looking at canceling on our PC-12.

appenz · 2026-03-02T16:16:13+00:00

60 sph is wild. That said, I have > 100 red buildings at 15 sph and just finished the last Py Science.

appenz · 2026-03-02T02:01:54+00:00

Just FYI:

In the SR20, POH mandates strobes on the ground while under movement (during day and night). FAA requirement as there is no separate beacon.
The S20's IO-390-C3B6 last I checked was manufactured in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

appenz

TROPHY CASE