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The Card's APRS track: California Adventure, now back home

scard

scard

Well Known Member
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If you're stuck at work all day tomorrow, 6/4, "aprs tv" will be tracking us as we depart GTU around 1300Z headed to 'Rosie'mond CA (L00). It should be a full day of flying. We'll be flying around CA for a few days, then the return trip on Wednesday 6/9.

From Rosie: Scott, put intersection ROSIE into your GPS and see where it takes you :)
 
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been there done that..........

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on the way

After a stop at Andrews for fuel, Scott and Tonya are headed west again.

Check out our track to NH earlier this week on our spot tracking page below.
 
What a good track! I am surprised how interesting it is just to watch seemingly straight line. It shows where they climb and what they see. May be they are using AP because it would be challenging for Scott to maintain +/- 2 feet on 13K. Or may be that was Tanya's leg :) Watching ya guys. Give us a yell from the road, you have 3G iPad with you...
 
Let me guess. Descending... Are they heading to to St Johns Industial AirPark? From Rosie: They should be landing SJN around 1230 PDT for fuel. Looking forward to their visit ;-)
 
mackd said:
Every 5 seconds--no reload is necessary.
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Hmmm...mine doesn't seem to be updating. I manually refreshed and it worked. Now it shows them a few miles from St John's and has for the past 15 or 20 minutes. Maybe it's Firefox.
 
Try it again Brian. Just click on Scott's sig track and it will show current position automatic. It will work untill beacons are received and sent to Internet. If out of APRS range the track shows last ported beacon. That's what happened when they started descending to St John's.
 
Vladyspassky said:
Try it again Brian. Just click on Scott's sig track and it will show current position automatic. It will work untill beacons are received and sent to Internet. If out of APRS range the track shows last ported beacon. That's what happened when they started descending to St John's.
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Ah, ok. I was misunderstanding how it worked. Thanks!
 
Holy burnt hot dogs!

Thru the desert during the day and passing Barstow at 4 pm in June. Troopers! Make sure that there is a beer IV upon arrival! I'm sweatin' just thinking about it and I live in the Phoenix heat!

Just noticed their Alt at 15636. Maybe it's not so bad then.
 
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Congratulations

The Cards and 22C landed.

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And their plane is tucked away in the hangar! Scott and Tanya arrived ~1645 PDT :) Rosie

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Whew, I'm pooped. Easy flight. Not a single cloud in sight the whole flight. Rosie just launched into the dark for a quick flight while I type this on his porch. These people are living the life out here. Oh, and of course we met Dick Rutan at dinner!:)
More local flying adventures tomorrow.
 
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Looks like the Cards are having good time. APRSpyNetwork has detected them here

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From Rosie: Here's their flight path from Rosamond to Merced:

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The adventure continues. We stayed the night in San Luis, did a winery tour, and checked out Pismo beach for dinner. Launched from there this morning headed north for a very leisurely slow flight following the coast line. Norcal approach was very accommodating to our scenic tour. Our plan was Half Moon Bay for lunch (just south of the San Francisco surface area), but that just wasn't to be with the low fog hanging around there all day. I'm amazed that we had an APRS track all the way up the coast. We were below the ridge line most of the way. Trying to use the terrain experience Rosie gave us a couple days before. Got lunch and landed Merced where 22C will sit for a couple of days. Rental car to Mariposa for a day trip into Yosemite tomorrow. No APRS TV tomorrow, but Wednesday will be the next big day, beginning very early, for a full day flying back to Texas hopefully.
Vlad, how about posting some screen captures of today's track.

From Rosie: Here's the Card's "Figure 8" track from Saturday....sure looks questionable you two! :D

Cards_Figure_8.jpg
 
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Looks like Scott and Tanya are on there way home today, near the Grand Canyon around 10am PDT: Here's their track, and it will show current position automatically. You may need to change the time (Show Last) to 12 hours to get the entire track :) Rosie
 
That's where they are as of now. I hope they can make it home tonight. Will watch them till landing :D

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This picture is enigmatic. The difference between markers is about half an hour. Did they land at Andrews County Airport?

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It's curious to me that for the majority of their eastbound flight they have been flying at an altitude between 14k and 14,5k. This is curious because if they are flying VFR then the rules call for altitudes of odd thousand + 500 (9.5, 11.5, 13.5, etc.). Because they are both experienced pilots it's unlikely that they would just ignore these rules. If they are flying IFR then my understanding is that the rules (again based on their eastbound heading) would call for assigned altitudes of odd thousands (9k, 11k, 13k, etc.). If they are indeed flying IFR and simply flying the assigned altitude how common is it for enroute controllers to not follow the altitude rules/guidelines? Just a curious VFR pilot asking...:)

From Rosie: I saw 15-15.5K when they were flying westbound...
 
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Bill,

I think it's the altitude transmitted by APRS. They are both very knowledeable and IR pilots and definitely remember the proper altitudes.

About 30 minutes to go and they are home.

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The adventurers are home! Waiting for Travel Story...

Last beacon was intercepted on final RWY 18

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Welcome back, Cards

WhiskeyMike said:
It's curious to me that for the majority of their eastbound flight they have been flying at an altitude between 14k and 14,5k. This is curious because if they are flying VFR then the rules call for altitudes of odd thousand + 500 (9.5, 11.5, 13.5, etc.). Because they are both experienced pilots it's unlikely that they would just ignore these rules. ... snip... Just a curious VFR pilot asking...:)
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A favorite flight tracking website of mine for those planes that aren't APRS equipped is flightaware.com . It works most of the time for those on VFR flight following, though it's mainly for IFR flights AFAIK. The Cards' last leg from the Midland/Odessa area back home shows up and it indicates 13,500msl cruise altitude with a groundspeed near 170mph. You should be able to click here to see what I''m talking about. One more reason to use flight following, though I haven't figured out why some of my VFR FF flights show and not others. (Or one less reason if you don't want the world being able to see your recent flight history, I guess.)

Go figure -- put 2 instrument rated pilots in super nicely equipped bird, tell them to fly through 5 states and they get awesome, what looks life VFR weather the whole way! Guess you have to build the RV to get that luck. :cool:

Now the real question is do they go to the Pecan Plantation Fly In this Saturday after all their recent flying... :)
 
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Whew... Thanks for watching. Altitudes were all correct vfr altitudes. Sometimes the aprs tracker reports incorrectly, it seems, more often when up high. Yep, landed at Andrews for fuel and a pit stop. We never touched a cloud the whole trip, amazing. We can't believe it either. I told Tanya I was going so I could fly, and somehow, I flew every hour of flight the whole trip. She rocked the position of chief navigator, operations, and logistics officer. All i had to do was wiggle the stick. It feels good, but I'm pooped, need sleep. Of course we will be at the Pecan Plantation fly in this weekend!
 
You two have discovered the secret to perfect VFR weather- have TWO IFR rated and current pilots and a well-equipped aircraft! We travel often, and I hardly ever get to log any IMC.....:(
 
Thanks for the clarification...I also wondered if the discrepancy might be some sort of APRS reporting error but didn't think those units would be off by that much. Sure looks like your trip was a great adventure...glad to see that you're home safe!!
 
WhiskeyMike said:
Thanks for the clarification...I also wondered if the discrepancy might be some sort of APRS reporting error but didn't think those units would be off by that much. Sure looks like your trip was a great adventure...glad to see that you're home safe!!
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APRS is going to report GPS altitude, we fly using pressure altitude. The further the altimeter setting is from 29.92, the larger the difference between the two.
 
Interesting that you hit a "dead zone" with no aprs pings in central NV near Tonopah. I have had a similar experience headed east from Reno along US 50 where I get no coverage (even flying at 13500). The digipeater maps show stations at Eureka NV and Austin NV, but apparently these are not working any more (I flew almost directly over them).

cheers,
greg
 
Are you planning to post a trip write-up? I'd be interested in knowing how the inflight portion of your trip was. :rolleyes:
 
Greg Arehart said:
Interesting that you hit a "dead zone" with no aprs pings in central NV near Tonopah.
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Maybe I can shed some light on that. We landed at Tonopah for our first stop, so we were descending and climbing out of there. I think I made some kind of comment like "holy density altitude Batman!" on the lethargic climb out of there.

FredMagare said:
Are you planning to post a trip write-up? I'd be interested in knowing how the inflight portion of your trip was. :rolleyes:
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I think so. Maybe I'll try to coordinate with Tanya the next couple of days to make something happen. We're both doing the back to work sprint right now, "climbing Mt. email" as Doug says. Neither of us have anyone else that does our jobs while we're gone.
 
scard said:
I think I made some kind of comment like "holy density altitude Batman!" on the lethargic climb out of there.
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Hey Scott - thanks so much for sharing this motivational trip, especially for us 9A builders that are struggling with the darn canopy!! It's made me get out into the shop all week!

Just wondering what a "lethargic" climb rate is on a 9A?
 
IowaRV9Dreamer said:
Just wondering what a "lethargic" climb rate is on a 9A?
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max gross, oat ~95deg, DA 9910' at takeoff, fighting to keep CHTs ~410deg, working for every foot of 250fpm in bouncing desert turbulence. This requires a careful balance of power output (mainly managed with the C/S prop, full throttle), fuel flow, and speed.
 
putting it in perspective

scard said:
max gross, oat ~95deg, DA 9910' at takeoff, fighting to keep CHTs ~410deg, working for every foot of 250fpm
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Thanks Scott - that actually sounds fine to me. That's about what I get at 95F at gross weight (1675#) in the Skipper at about 3000' DA.... so I'll be lovin my -9A even on hot days!

It's great to see real world performance numbers.
 
"Pretty" route

I've flown that entire route several times (in the Long-EZ).... mighty desolate between Tonopah and Mesquite... but a pretty route just the same. I'm not much of a desert flyer in the afternoon though..... usually "Mr. Toads Wild Ride"!
 
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