One of my Favorite Things

This is one of my favorite things. I'm currently approaching Mount Pilchuck from the south a little east (2 miles) of the peak closing on Bathtub Lakes.

On the panel, clockwise from the top we first have the clock, which I did not set so ignore it. Next is the airspeed indicator which is showing about 115 mph. The attitude indicator shows a slightly nose high attitude. The altimeter reads 6,700 ft. Rate of climb (below the altimeter) shows 400 ft/min. DG shows we are heading magnetic 10 deg (roughly north). Turn coordinator shows no turn.

The Garmin GPS bolted to the yoke shows 97 knots ground speed and 12 deg bearing, there is no way point selected. Can not see the tachometer as it's behind the yoke, it was about 2500 rpm.

Throttle Quadrant, throttle is open, mixture (red leaver) slightly leaned, forward is full rich. Master switch (the red one) is on, axillary fuel pump off, split strobe rocker has tail beacon on with wingtip strobes off, pitotheat (airspeed probe de-ice) is off. To the right of the mixture the carburetor heat is off and the exhaust gas temperature meter 'EGT' (for helping to set mixture) is inoperative.

The engine gages across the middle just behind the yoke indicate, oil pressure green, oil temp green, amps looks like 6 or 7 which, since almost everything is off is ok, left fuel tank obscured by the yoke, fuel pressure good, right fuel tank full.

Starting at the top of the radio stack the com is set to radio one, the top one which is set to 120.20 or Paine Field east runway, Com 1 VOR/ILS radio is off. Comm 2 below is off as is it's VOR. The transponder is squawking VFR or 1200, mode C (alt) activated ('altitude encoding' displays aircraft altitude on aircraft controller's radar screens.)

The last thing is the magnetic compass, on top of the dashboard in the window, which shows a north heading. There is also a temperature gage through the window that is not visible in the picture but was reading zero Celsius at 7,000 ft.

The next three things after clearing the mountain were, setting the GPS course to KPAE, trim for decent and 150 mph cruise, check the PAE Atis and verify tango was still current. Interestingly the decent profile calculation from the GPS (500 ft / min) indicated the decent from 7,000 should start just west of Pilchuck at 145 mph to reach pattern altitude 2 miles from the airport. That calculation was very close to the actual result.