Saturday, December 16, 2006

Long Cross-Country Accomplished!

Today I flew solo from Gaithersburg to Potomac Airfield in Berkeley Springs, WV, then to Hagerstown in Maryland, then back to Gaithersburg. It was a perfect day to fly, except that when I left the wind was 12 knots, gusting to 17. Surprisingly, there's little to write about this trip. It was beautiful, very clear, with wide open blue skies. The visibility was more than 10 miles -- I could see the airport at Hagerstown from 14 miles, and Gaithersburg from 13+ when I was flying back.


W35 is a tiny airport, with just a runway, no taxiways, no gas or services. The last few miles to the airport are along a river, and the approach to Runway 29 is over the river, with a low ridge to the left. There is also no weather information broadcast from the airport, so when I got to the airport I flew over it to look at the windsock on the ground, then circled out and around to land. I'm pretty happy with the smooth circles of my GPS track and the smooth rollout onto the downwind heading.

The airport is so small there are no taxiways, so if you land and want to take off again, you have to turn around on the runway and taxi back down the runway. An airplane took off as I was approaching the airport, but there was not a soul on the ground, so I called Rich just to let him know I arrived there safely. Then I took off and headed East to Hagerstown. I had to climb up to clear a low mountain ridge, then drop back down, because Hagerstown was only 20 miles away.

When I landed at Hagerstown, I was cleared for a stop and go, so I landed, stopped, then took off again. Then I landed again and taxied to get gas. A lineman waved me in with hand signals, and literally put down a piece of red carpet for me to step onto when I got out of the plane. The lady inside was very friendly and signed my logbook just for fun.

The flight back was uneventful, though even more beautiful with the sun low in the sky. A flock of crows was wheeling around near Sugarloaf Mountain, and I had to turn hard to avoid them. My landing at Gaithersburg was near-perfect, and I was fortunate to have a half dozen witnesses. Jodie was there, because SHE FLEW AGAIN WITH JOHN TODAY! (I think she had fun, too, though I don't know much about it yet.) There were also a couple guys from my flying club there working on a plane, and they saw the landing too. Perhaps the nicest touch was, after I was clear of the runway, a voice came over the radio and said, "Welcome back, Greg." It was Rich, who was there to head out for some instrument training. That, followed by Jodie running up to the plane as I got out to give me a hug -- those two things made a perfect conclusion to the flight.

So today I finished my solo landings at a towered airport, my long solo cross-country, and.... Well, I wasn't in the air long enough to finish all of my solo cross-country time, so I have to do one more solo trip. No problem!

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Saturday, December 09, 2006

First Solo Cross-Country!

I spent a lot of time flying today, a total of 3.7 hours. The first 1.6 were spent on a flight in the newer Skyhawk owned by a club I recently joined. I've been flying Skyhawks all along, of course, but because it's newer, it has some differences, and I wanted my first flight to be with an instructor from the club. He also treated the flight as a mini-checkride, and had me plan a cross-country flight to Potomac Airfield. When we were halfway to Potomac, though, he had me do some maneuvers, slow flight, steep turns, a stall, etc., and then "divert" to Frederick, where we did three touch n' gos before heading back to Gaithersburg. He said I'll have no trouble passing my checkride, though he said I have a tendency to flare a bit high when landing.

My second flight was the BIG one, my first cross-country trip by myself. I planned the flight to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and met with Rich on Thursday night to go over my flight plan. The weather was beautiful today, as clear as I've seen it (for this region) in a really long time. It was cold, though, and while the wind on the ground in Gaithersburg was light, the winds aloft were forecast at 21 knots, or nearly 25 mph.

I took off and headed for my first visual checkpoint, a "tank farm," a grouping of big white oil tanks that can be seen for miles from the air. Before I even got to my first checkpoint I was being bounced around a bit in the plane. The flight continued, and the turbulence got a bit worse. When I was about halfway, some turbulence tipped the plane over on its right wing. I think that makes it qualify as "moderate" turbulence by formal definitions. It was worse than anything I've experienced since I started training, but it wasn't terrible and I wasn't scared. I just reduced my airspeed to below Va, or "maneuvering speed," and continued on.

Before long, I crossed the Susquehanna (sp?) River and could see the Lancaster airport about 8 miles away. I listened on the radio for the winds, and they were "250 at 13." The tower cleared me to land on Runway 31, and I set up for the landing. I knew there was a cross-wind from the left, and compensated for it as I approached the runway. This involves "slipping" the plane, banking the plane to the left, into the wind, and using the right rudder to keep it lined up with the runway. The wind was a bit gusty, and at one point (for just a moment) I had the right rudder in all the way and still couldn't keep the plane straight. The landing was a bit bumpy, certainly not my best, but not all that bad considering everything. It was kind of like ALL my landings were when I was first learning.

I stopped at the pilot shop and chatted with the owner, who signed my logbook to prove that I was there, then I called Rich to let him know I had arrived safely. I told him about the turbulence and cross-wind landing, and he asked if I had been nervous. I was surprised, when I thought about it, that I hadn't been nervous at all. That's either bad stupidity (not smart enough to know when to be afraid) or good confidence, I don't know which. I knew what to do, and I never felt unsafe, so I think it's probably just confidence in myself and the airplane, rather than stupidity, but.... Well, who am I to judge?

When I left Lancaster, I demanded Runway 26, which was almost directly into the wind. The controller tried to make me go on 31, but I told him the cross-wind exceeded my limitations and he had me taxi for the other runway. With the wind nearly right down the runway, I was off the ground in about 600 feet, and I headed home.

The flight home was beautiful. I was at a lower altitude, and the turbulence was lighter. As the sun sank lower in the sky, the turbulence went away altogether, and when I arrived back at Gaithersburg there was just a 3 knot wind, albeit straight across the runway. I made a nice landing, and taxied in.

Overall, the trip went really well. Nothing made me nervous, and I did everything right, except.... In retrospect, I should have asked the controller in Lancaster to bring me in on Runway 26. For some reason, I never even thought about asking, I just factored the cross-wind into my approach to Runway 31. Maybe that's because I fly out of an airport with only one runway. Whatever, next time I'm going to be sure to ask for the runway I want based on the winds.

Next cross-country -- maybe to Potomac airpark, the trip I planned for this morning but didn't complete. I'll talk to Rich and see.

My GPS track is below. I wish I had pictures, because it was a beautiful, clear day, but when I took out my camera in the plane, the battery was dead.

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Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Dual Night Cross-Country

Rich and I flew a cross-country trip last night. It's a requirement of pilot training to do a night flight with an instructor to another airport that is more than 100 miles, so I planned a flight from Gaithersburg, Maryland, 122 miles north to Lehigh Valley International Airport in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

My regular flying club has been having maintenance issues with its planes, so I almost wasn't able to go. BUT I did recently join another club that does not have any such problems, and there was a plane available, so we took that one.

Due to the trouble we had finding an airplane, Rich and I got a late start by about two hours, and we lifted off after 8:00. Neither Rich nor I had ever flown that particular plane, so we took extra time to familiarize ourselves with it and do a thorough preflight inspection. During the inspection, I discovered that the last person to fly it had left the gas tanks less than 1/4 full. The fuel service at the airport was closed, but there was fuel available in Allentown. I had done detailed fuel consumption calculations, and we had enough to fly to Allentown with required reserves, but I did not like cutting it that close at night.

Since we had enough fuel, we went. It was VERY cold, about 10 degrees Fahrenheit, and we very quickly discovered that the airplane had no heat. My feet felt like blocks of ice, and Rich wrapped maps around his legs for extra warmth. The windshield apparently had leaks around the edges, and cold air was blowing on my face for the whole trip. Fortunately, it didn't take too long to get to Allentown, about an hour and a half. The flight was beautiful, slightly hazy but with a nearly full moon -- we flew over a reservoir, the Susquehanna River, and several airports. It was neat to see the airports down below us, and we turned on the runway lights of a couple with our radios. We were cleared by the Allentown tower to land on Runway 31, and I performed a beautiful cross-wind landing.

Rich and I got a cup of coffee and warmed up while the linemen refueled the airplane. Then it was time to go back.

It had been a very long day, and my GPS shows that I flew a decidedly curvy course back to Gaithersburg. We landed at Gaithersburg sometime around 12:30 a.m., and Rich ran to his truck to warm up while I secured the plane.


It was a fun flight, and I'm glad to have that requirement in my training complete. However, next time I'd like to be warmer and less tired, and I think the experience will be an overall more enjoyable one. That may be after I have my license, though.

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Saturday, November 18, 2006

Cross-Country At Last!

I finally got to do some real cross-country time. My old instructor, Rich, offered to fly with me due to the problems I've had scheduling cross-country time with John. So I made it a good one, from Gaithersburg to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to Capitol City Airport in Harrisburg, down to Hagerstown, MD, then home. Not counting time or distance at the airports (pattern, taxi, etc.), it's a loop of just over 200 miles by air, or about 2 hours. By car, Mapquest says the route would be 275 miles and 5.4 hours. In reality, we made it into a 3-1/2 hour trip because we landed, parked the plane, and explored a bit at Lancaster and Capitol City. Here's the route from my portable GPS:

Although I had the GPS turned on, it was only there for safety's sake, and we didn't use it at all. Instead we mostly used pilotage and ded (dead) reckoning, with some VOR navigation thrown in. It was hazy, but there were a couple really pretty moments. Although my photo didn't come out well, the early morning sun was lighting up Baltimore's Inner Harbor in bright, neon-like orange.

When we left Lancaster, we were instructed by air traffic to follow the western bank of the Susquehanna River, up past Harrisburg International Airport and the big nuclear power plant on -- drum roll -- Three Mile Island. The river was pretty, and it was fun to follow the curves of the river. Later, after we climbed out of Capitol City, there was a layer of scattered clouds right at the altitude we were planning to use. We decided to climb above it. We did, and ten minutes later realized we had made a mistake. It was beautiful, because the air was clear, but what had been scattered clouds seemed to knit together under us to become one solid overcast layer.

When we finally found a hazy opening where we could see the ground, we took it, telling the bewildered controller that yes, although we had just requested a higher altitude, now we wanted a lower one. The opening wasn't very large, but with some steep s-turns we made it down through without breaking any rules.

Above the clouds, of course, you can't see the ground to navigate by pilotage, and for some reason we weren't receiving the Hagerstown VOR signal. We were only a few miles north of Camp David, and didn't want to break into the restricted airspace. If we hadn't found that break in the clouds and been able to get below them, I would have broken the "rules" of the flight and used the GPS.

Total flight time for the trip was 3.1 hours, which means that I got my required cross-country training all in one flight. Probably one more dual cross-country, then my solo cross-countries. Making progress.....!


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Thursday, October 12, 2006

Back in the game!

Seven weeks to the day since my last flight, I flew today with John. It was a short flight (I had a dentist appointment to go to), so we just went up to Frederick and back in trusty 35R. I've been slammed with work the last six weeks or so and have barely had time to stay acquainted with my wife and dog. Flying, being the solo hobby it is at the moment, took a back seat. But, I turned in a large project Monday night, and began aching to fly again. My 90-day solo endorsement had expired, so when I saw John at the flying club meeting on Tuesday I did my best to schedule some time, and today was it.

My landing in Frederick was one of the best I've ever done despite the 6-knot wind 70 degrees off the runway. In fact, after touchdown John said, "Better than I can do." I got to play with the new Garmin GPS that's in the plane, which is nice because it shows the ADIZ boundary, that imaginary line with a very real F16 on the other side. On our return to Gaithersburg, the wind was 12 knots, gusting to 15, but not far off the centerline.

So my solo endorsement is renewed, and I can now try to get back out there to fly. If I could just get John scheduled for some serious cross-country time.....

Oh! One other thing, a very important thing. Several clubs at my airport have gotten together to sponsor a PinchHitter course. For the uninitiated, this is a course that teaches non-flying spouses how to control and land a plane if the pilot they fly with somehow becomes incapacitated. Of course, Jodie said, "Give me a parachute and I KNOW what to do!" Nevertheless, she volunteered, and is taking the course in December. It takes place over two Saturdays, includes four hours of classroom time and four hours of flight time. I can't wait, but I hope and pray that it goes well and she doesn't get scared (er, more scared, I mean).

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