Lesson 21 -- First cross-country flight

First X-Country!!!

Addison, TX (KADS) to Ardmore, OK (KADM)
The plan going up is pure pilotage, no navaids. Coming back we'll use GPS.

Checkpoint -- Planned ETA -- Actual ETA
KADS -- xx -- 2013Z (departure)
Lake Ray Roberts Dam -- 2022Z -- 2024Z
Lake Ray Roberts North Tip -- 2028Z -- 2030Z
Gainsville, TX crossing Highway 82 -- 2034Z -- 2034Z
Marietta, OK cluster of towers -- 2045Z -- 2040Z
Lake Murray State Park Airport -- 2050Z -- 2050Z
KADM -- 2059Z -- 2103Z

Planned ETE: 0:44:00
Actual ETE: 0:50:00

I made my plan for an altitude of 4500' but we ended up climbing to 6500' in an attempt to get out of the horrible haze that was sitting on North Texas. We didn't make it ... we needed to go at least another 1000' up but that's also where the clouds started.

The flight up went pretty well. I arrived at Monarch well over an hour ahead of time to do my flight plan and preflight. But we got delayed leaving because of a King Air blocking the ramp. I did file a flight plan when I called to get my weather briefing but both C and I forgot to open it once we were airborne. We requested flight following before we left Addison and the airspace around Addison and DFW was so busy that we both were pretty busy keeping up with the radio. Leaving Dallas we got vectored around a little until we were clear of the Class B.

C mentioned that earlier in the day he was doing a flight in the practice area at 3500' and a Southwest Airlines 737 arrived at their same altitude! C had to take the controls and do an emergency descent to get out of his way. Glad it wasn't me. We didn't see any other aircraft on our flight though we did get vectored around some traffic at one point. But we never made visual contact with it.

I was pretty busy during the flight watching for other traffic and noting my times on my flight plan. I didn't really get much time to look at the scenery below not that I could see that much for the haze. C also showed me how to use the autopilot so that helped take some of the pressure off. Especially since I was juggling paper what with the flight plan, my usual ATIS/airport info sheet, sectional chart, and eventually the airport diagram for Ardmore. We weren't using GPS on the way up so I had to "steer" using the heading bug to keep us on course.

Ardmore is a neat little airport. It's towered as it use to be an army/air force base a long time ago. Now it only has two active runways left with a couple of 200' wide taxiways. And lots of space on the apron. There were some planes near hangars but only one other aircraft on the apron while we were there. No arrivals or departures while we were there. The runway and the taxiways all are pretty beat up. I was really surprised there weren't potholes. Are a lot of airports like that?

We pulled up to Lakeland Aviation (the only FBO) and the woman managing the place actually came out and waved us in. I was surprised that with a mile of apron and only one other aircraft that she would bother waving someone in. I mean, it's not like there's anything for me to hit.

We got the fuel topped off and checked out Lakeland (I signed the guest log). What a neat place. Lots of cool pictures on the walls, a nice selection of books and charts and knick-knacks. I picked up a copy of The Oklahoma Aviator ... the two front page stories are about new light sport aircraft ... the Flight Design CT and the Legend Cub.

Borrowing the Lakeland golf cart we drove down the road leading to the FBO and three blocks away is a great hole-in-the-wall burger joint. Big T's Express. We had just enough time for a couple of burgers and fries before returning to Dallas. It was great getting a chance to talk to C about things other than my lessons.

Back at the airport we did a quick preflight and fired up the engine for the flight back. Originally, the plan was to do a diversion on the way back. I had my little checklist card written out and ready on my clipboard. But, with the delay getting out of Addison and us enjoying our burgers we needed to make best time on the return trip. So no diversion, just set up the GPS for guidance and follow the magenta line.

We were cleared for taxi and then takeoff on runway 17 and were asked to contact Ft Worth Center on 128.10 to get flight following. That done I followed C's prompts to set up a direct course to ADS. Then I did my best to keep us on that course and climbed to 7500'.

At 7500' on the way back we *almost* got out of the haze, but the further into Texas we went the higher up the haze went. Oh well. Of couse, the flight back seemed to go in the blink of an eye. Two ATC handoffs later we were on approach into Addison. Regional Approach was very very very busy. The controller was speaking so fast (plus there was at least one other aircraft with a callsign similar to ours) that even concentrating on him calling out callsigns I still missed it when he talked to me. Eventually C had to help out with the radios because I just couldn't keep up. When we were handed off to Addison Tower I was met by a constant barrage of monologue coming from the controller so I was waiting for a chance to announce myself when all of sudden he started giving us clearances and commands. Again, I totally missed it. I know they know we're coming but I was expecting that I would have to start the dialogue. Lesson learned.

C showed me what a fast approach is like. Wow! Fun! Groundspeed was around 130 knots until nearly short final when he finally had me pull the power and pull the nose up slightly to slow down. I was surprised by how quickly we slowed. I expected to have to really struggle to get the Skyhawk slowed but that wasn't really the case. Just a little nose up and no power quickly got us under 110 so we could start putting flaps down. The wind was 110-degrees at 7 so we had just a little bit of crosswind but the landing went really well. Good thing too because Monarch's owner was waiting to take off in his King Air!! No pressure there.

Lessons Learned:

1) Filed a flight plan, great. But doesn't do any good if I don't open it. And for god's sake don't forget to close it.
2) Radios! I must keep up with the radio. If the radios are causing stress use the autopilot to lessen the work load. There's no problem with letting George drive for a while.
3) Learned how to use the instruments to get True Airspeed.
4) Learned how to use the autopilot.
5) Got a good introduction to the GPS. Still a lot to learn there.
6) When stopping at an airport, if you're making use of an FBO then buy some gas. Even if you only need a few gallons, it's their bread and butter.
7) Flight Following ... be ready to read back the instructions ... CRAFT ... ?, Route, Altitude, Frequency, Transponder. I can't remember what C stands for.
8) I need less paper on my kneeboard. I think, ditch the pad of paper. Just carry the AOPA kneeboard sheet for my destination, airport diagram, flight log and sectional. All the other little communication cheat sheets, etc are just getting in the way.

Great flight! Great fun! Finally, this is what flying is all about (except when Marco and Aerobat are doing loops, hammerheads, barrel rolls, etc)!

This flight: 2.3 hours
Landings: 2
Total: 33.2 hours

Lesson 20

My progress check flight last Saturday was postponed due to weather ... clouds that simply will not go away. They've been hanging around for days. Anyway, I rescheduled for today at 1800 local time and until early afternoon it was starting to look like another wash. But then the ceilings started to lift and wind began to pick up. Yeeehaw we're on!

The ATIS report for my flight was: KADS 072247Z 19008KT 13SM FEW070 35/20 A2976.

This flight was with a different senior instructor than the last time, but his initial is also S. Turns out S got his PPL from Monarch and then left for college. After graduation last year he returned to Dallas and went to work at Monarch as a CFI. Now he's one of the senior instructors.

The plan today is to cover as much as we can of ... stalls under the hood, recovery from unusual attitudes under the hood, intercepting and tracking a VOR under the hood, short field takeoffs and landings and soft field takeoffs and landings. A full load.

The curriculum also calls for tracking to an NDB. However, S said that even though the plane I rented had one the majority of Monarch's Skyhawks don't so unless I really wanted to track an NDB we were going to skip that. I told him I had a pretty good grasp on how it worked (and the pitfalls involved) so we agreed to dispense with that part of the lesson.

I preflighted N432SP and we hopped in and taxied out to runway 15. We were first to arrive there but two biz jets showed up while we were doing our runup and the tower asked if we minded letting the Hawker go before us. Suuuuuuure, go ahead. It was cool watching him take off. Then it was our turn. I was a little nervous as 1) this was a prog check and 2) it had been a couple of weeks since I flew. S asked me to do a soft field takeoff at first but there was someone on final to land so once we got on the runway we expidited by doing a regular takeoff.

Turning North and departing Addison at 2000' it wasn't long before S took the controls and handed me the hood. How about you intercept and track the 010-degree radial from Cowboy. Conveniently, he had already tuned it into the Nav radio. So I listened to the morse code and checked my sectional ... it's a match. Then I rotated the OBS on the HSI (oh yeah, this plane has an HSI ... sweet) so that the flag showed from and the arrow pointed to 1. I entered a shallow turn to the left until I was on a 330-degree heading. Then it seemed to take forever before the needle started to move. After a while I started double-checking everything becuase I thought maybe I had missed something. But finally, thankfully, the needle started to move and I entered a shallow right bank until I was on the radial and following it.

Then S gave me some various headings to turn to and had me climb to 3000' ... and then 3500' because I was having trouble holding my altitude down. Besides, it was cooler up there. =;-)

Then he had me tune in the Bonham VOR and figure out which radial I was on from the VOR and then follow it to the VOR. So after identifying Bonham on the radio (hard because a voice kept talking over the morse code) I rotated the OBS until the needle centered and the flag read "from" then I rotated the OBS until the flag read "to" and turned to follow the radial.

S then had me demonstrate a power off stall. "Since you're under the hood you can initiate recovery when you feel the buffet or when you hear the stall horn. You don't have to wait until we're in the full stall." OK, that ought to be pretty easy then. As a matter of fact, it was. Almost a non-event, except that I really had to think hard to remember all the steps to follow. These Skyhawks sure stall a lot easier in summer than they do in winter. After the power off I did a power on and in both I recovered when I heard the horn blowing. On the power on I did get slightly uncoordinated but I fixed it quickly.

Then S asked me if I got queasy easily. Ha! No, not really. Good, we'll do the unusual attitudes now. He took the controls and I closed my eyes and he bounced and twisted us around he had me recover ... we were very nose down and gaining speed fast. The left wing was down so I yanked the power out and leveled the wings and then slowly started pulling the nose up. I think I should have pulled the nose up more aggressively but S seemed happy with it. We did another where we ended up in a climb. These were pretty benign really, next to the faux-aerobatics my regular instructor did when we did this lesson.

S had me pull off the hood and said "take us to Denton for some short and softs." It was really easy to figure out where we were because off our right wing was the 2700' tower at the North end of the practice area. There's nothing else like it out there so it's a great landmark. In front of us was Lake Ray Roberts. The lake looked beautiful today. I just followed the shoreline until we were over the dam and then I called up Denton. The tower asked us to report 3 miles out.

At 3 miles I was slowing and put down 10-degrees of flaps. S asked me to do a soft field landing and then a soft field takeoff. After a trip around the pattern I would do a soft landing and takeoff. So I just kept repeating to myself in my head ... normal landing but just keep the nose wheel up. No one else was in the pattern so I had no pressure from other aircraft. I slowed to 62 kias and full flaps and flared a little too fast. I ballooned a few feet up but I kept the back pressure and added a little power and we came down on the mains. I think we bounced just a little but I easily kept the nose up. Without coming to a full stop, S pulled the laps up to 10-degrees and I pushed in the power while pulling back on the yoke. This time it seemed pretty easy to get the balance right. Before I pulled the nose up too fast and was scared of striking the tail but today it just seemed right. We lifted off pretty quickly and I put the nose down until we accelerated to 62 kias where we started climbing. 75 feet up or so the flaps came in and we accelerated to 74 kias.

Next was the short field landing. When I did this with my regular instructor we didn't really talk about having an obstacle on short final, we mainly worked on touching down on one spot consistently. But S said let's pretend there's a 50' obstacle at the end of the runway. You need to come over it at about 75'. Turning final I was hitting my speeds but I felt like I was too high and I said something about it. But I was already at full flaps so I didn't want to slip. I just pulled the power to idle and put the nose down. Luckily for me the wind was 10 knots so I ended up crossing the end of the runway at just about 75' like S wanted. I was a little faster than I wanted but I kept the nose down anyway ... getting closer .. getting closer ... slowly pull back on the yoke and flare, nose high, mains touch down with a pretty solid thunk. Nose comes down and I'm on the brakes. Wow, that was exactly the way the book describes it. I really surprised myself.

S handled the flaps for me (10-degrees) and I stood on the brakes while I pushed the power in full. Gauges in the green, over 2200 RPM, I come off the brakes and we bolt forward. I have a little left and right wobble as I push on the right rudder a little too strongly. But soon enough I'm pulling back on the yoke and we're climbing right on 57 kias. Up and over our other imaginary obstacle and then I put the nose down and as the speed climbs I pull in the flaps.

Not as good as the landing but not bad either. On the way back S tells me that I did everything very well and that the touch and goes especially were "good flying". Wow! I'm so psyched now. What a boost. Here I was a little down because again the weather was making me wait and I thought I was getting rusty. But no, everything just comes together!

So that's it. I'm cleared to start cross-countries. And it's a great feeling!!!

This lesson: 1.4 hours
landings: 3
Total: 30.9 hours