Distractions

My friend Nick loves gadgets, and flying with him is like a trip through Den Den City.  We had two tablets going, one running SkyCharts, the other running ForeFlight, plus a fistful of smart phones and two different handheld GPSs.  For a twenty minute flight.  Oh, I had a current sectional chart available, too.

We went to our local EAA chapter meeting and headed home.  Given the smoke pervading the Western US the visibility was a little low, but still good VFR.  I had planned to do a practice ILS on the way home, but I have plenty of recent approaches, so skipped it.

Nick asked me about uPad and the trick I wrote about in the last post, so I turned my tablet toward him and showed him how it worked.

That meant that nobody was flying the airplane.


Grrrrr.

When I looked up, we had gone through the extended centerline to runway 21, although we were more than 10 miles from the airport.

Grrrrr.

The wind was 070 at about 8, an acceptable tailwind component. so the tower offered runway 21.  Great.  But my focus on the tablet had put me behind and we were high and fast.  I reduced the manifold pressure as much as I dared, but we were still above Vfe and still high.

Grrrrr.

The American 757 going into Cali, Colombia.  The Gulfstream going into Houston.  The Lear headed into Carlsbad, CA.  I did not want to join that list, but being hot and high with a tailwind certainly increased my chances.

Grrrrr.

"Tower, 60N, change of plans, we'd like to enter left downwind for runway 3."

Admit your mistakes, and fix them before things get out of hand.