Long Solo Cross-Country

Long Solo Cross-Country

Finally! After numerous weather-related cancellations I finally got to make my long solo cross-country today. Weather did keep me from making the flight I planned ... Addison (KADS) to Paris (KPRX) to Tyler (KTYR) and back to Addison because Tyler was one of only two or three airports in the entire freakin' state that was IFR. I'm just not destined to fly to Tyler.

So, instead I hurriedly rewrote my flight plans to go to Paris, then Ardmore, OK (KADM) and then back to Addison. As I'm sure you've heard on the news it's very dry and very windy here and big grass fires are cropping up every day. Well today was windy but not enough to keep me on the ground. My instructor, C, happened to be at Monarch this morning when I arrived so he helped me check the weather and go over my new flight plan. He told me that since the winds were blowing right down the runway he'd let me go as long as the gusts were under 25 knots. I had to hang out an hour later than I originally planned to depart but that was enough to see the wind slow down.

The ATIS when I departed runway 33 was winds 340 at 18, vis 13 miles, clear skies, temp 15, dewpoint 0 and altimeter 2988.

Lift-off and departure went smoothly. I was soon cleared into the Class B and climbed to 5500'. The ride was slightly bumpy until I passed through 3000' and then the air became really smooth. This time I vowed not to use the autopilot or GPS for the entire trip and the smooth air made it easy. I hardly touched the yoke the entire time; instead I used the rudder pedals to keep the wings level. I had no trouble at all holding my heading this way.

The flight to Paris passed rather quickly. There's not a lot of scenery out that way but that's ok because I busy recalculating my ground speed and adjusting my flight plan. The winds were not as forecasted so my planned 121 knot ground speed turned out to be 98 knots. That's OK, the journey is the whole point so the longer it takes the happier I am.

I landed on runway 32 at Paris because the AWOS said the wind was coming from 310 at 12 knots. Oddly enough, other people there were taking off and landing on runway 35. 35 is much closer to the ramp so the taxi time is much less. My landing was OK. I ballooned a bit during the flare and dropped it in from about a foot off the ground. Ouch!

My instructor, C, had told me to fill up with fuel at both airports so that my receipts could be used as proof that I made the trip. So I pulled up to the self-serve pump ... the first time I have used one of these things. How odd, once you swipe your credit card it wants you to choose $-s or gallons. WTF? So I chose $ and then it wants to know how much I expect to purchase. Since there is no indication what the price per gallon is I'm stuck. I punch in a number (100) I think ... that should cover it. Then it authorizes the card ... THEN it tells me it's out of printer paper and I won't get a receipt. Now I wanted to kick the thing! Well, I didn't need fuel but I wanted the experience of doing the selve-serve so I went ahead and hoisted the nozzle up to the top of the wing and filled both tanks with a couple of gallons. There were no ladders around so I was climbing like a monkey with this nozzle and hose hanging around my neck. I remembered to attach the ground wire to the exhaust stack so I didn't start a Skyhawk-sized grass fire of my own!

Instead of a receipt I did get out and take pictures of the Skyhawk sitting next to the fuel pumps. That'll have to be proof enough!

Back in the air I tuned in the Texoma VOR and started tracking it inbound toward the Oklahoma border. The past few days have been pretty hazy (and smokey) but a cold front came through this morning and blew a lot of that away. The view today was spectacular. I had Lake Texoma in sight almost as soon as I left Paris. I climbed at Vy all the way up to my cruising altitude, 6500' and within half an hour I was crossing over the Red River into Oklahoma. For the first time I started to notice smoke columns and large ... very large ... areas of blackened ground. Far to the north of me was a very large column of white smoke rising up. I passed over one area just a few miles south of Durant where a previous fire was starting to flare up again. I found out later that a fire-fighting Chinook had been dispatched to douse that fire. I probably missed it by 20 minutes or so. That would have been pretty cool to see from my altitude.

To navigate to Ardmore I was following radials of the Texoma VOR. But I misread my own handwriting on the chart because I ended up about 5 miles north of Ardmore. I was in touch with the Tower after being passed off by regional control and I had descended to 2000' but after a long while of droning along in the bumpy air at 2000' I realized that something was wrong. I was getting close to the town of Ardmore and knowing where the airport is in relation to the town I guessed that I was north so I turned south and sure enough, over the next hill, there it was. The controller there was very polite about it. But I still felt like a dope.

The wind here was from 320 at 9 knots gusting to 16 knots. Fun. The runway is 31. I did a better job of managing the power and the descent and I landing close to my aiming point. But again I ballooned in the flare and dropped it in a bit, not as bad as before ... and I _was_ on the centerline ... but still not pretty.

They're still doing construction here. I found out from the FBO manager that runway 17-35 is being completely rebuilt. They have completely ripped it up and are now laying down the foundation. Instead of using lime he said that they're putting down powdered concrete which they then will till into the soil. They'll water that and let it set up for six days. When it's done they'll have a concrete base on which to put 9-inches of asphalt. The plan is to be done by February, but he said it'll probably be March. It was sorely needed. The old runway, I swear, had potholes in it.

He also mentioned that the forestry service is setting up a tanker base this weekend to help combat the grass fires. This Sunday is expected to be really bad ... 80-degrees F and 30+ mph winds.

Departing Ardmore it was an almost straight south flight back to Addison. Regional control was very busy and it was tough to get their attention. But almost before I could think about it I was being sequenced into Addison. I picked out the Tollway and just followed it in. I was determined that this landing would be better than the others and I didn't disappoint myself. The winds were only 310 at 10 knots as I landed on runway 33. Again I handled the power management and descent well as well as tracking the centerline. This time the flare was much better though maybe a tad late. But I didn't balloon much and I added just a touch of power when I did so the wheels settled down on the runway nicely. Yeah!

A funny thing happened when I was taxying back to Monarch. I was cleared to "taxi to uniform". So I went down taxiway alpha until I got to uniform and then I stopped. The controller asked me if I could see someone coming down uniform. I told her no, that I stopped because she cleared me "to" uniform and not "to" Monarch. She told me that that was implied and that I could continue on my way. She also thanked me for asking. I'm not so sure it was implied. Or at least, I'm not going to take it as implied. I recently went through the AOPA's online runway safety course and there were a couple of instances where a pilot took a clearance as implied and there were accidents. I think I'd rather hold short and ask just to be sure. Besides, taxiway uniform is too narrow to do a 180! heh

Next up is a solo flight to practice short/soft/regular takeoffs and landings. That's going to be fun!!!

KADS to KPRX ... 1.3 hours
KPRX to KADM ... 1.7 hours
KADM to KADS ... 1.2 hours
Total to date 50 hours

Pictures
Logbook

When to not go flying

I was scheduled to fly my long solo cross-country today. But I didn't.

Today was one of those days where the weather is just marginal enough that you could successfully argue in favor of going and also in not going. I had the Skyhawk scheduled for 8 to 1. I started checking and re-checking the forecasts yesterday. We've had several days of clouds and this weekend is forecast for more. The air is pretty stable, just cloudy. So the trick for today is how low will the clouds be hanging out.

I got up at 6 this morning and checked the weather. Addison was reporting ...

KADS 181147Z 00000KT 13SM OVC030 07/02 A3045

But Tyler, my first destination was reporting ...

KTYR 181153Z AUTO 00000KT 10SM CLR 00/M03 RMK A02 SLPNO T00001028 10028 21006$

And my second destination, Paris was reporting ...

KPRX 181155Z AUTO 05006KT 10SM CLR 02/M06 A3046 RMK A01 10060 20010 52014

So, clouds at Addison and a couple of the surrounding airports but clear at my outlying destinations. Muddying the picture was a forecast for Tyler predicting clouds at 4000' around the time I would be there. So I called up Monarch once they opened and asked if, since no one had the Skyhawk reserved after me, could I postpone my reservation by two hours. "Sure". Great!

I pulled a winds forecast and set about filling out the blank spots in my flight plans. Filling out three took longer than I expected so I was running late. I called Monarch at about 15 till 10am and my instructor, C, picked up! I told him what was up and he sounded pretty optimistic about the weather so told me to go ahead and drive in and review the weather again with whomever was at the desk.

I gathered my stuff and drove over. The guy behind the desk wasn't quite so optimistic. He had just come back from a flight in the practice area and the clouds were lower than expected there (North of Addison). So we agreed to postpone another hour and check the weather at 11.

I went upstairs and planted myself in front of a computer. Wow! Waiting for metars to update is like watching paint dry!! :p

Finally, 11 rolls around and the new reports look like this ...

KADS 181647Z 00000KT 13SM BKN037 OVC150 09/01 A3055
KTYR 181653Z 05004KT 10SM CLR 08/M02 RMK A02 SLPNO T00781017$
KPRX 181655Z AUTO 12005KT 10SM FEW039 SCT049 BKN070 08/M03 A3056 RMK A01

Other airports were reporting no real significant changes. So Addison looked to be clearing up a bit but now there were multiple cloud layers at Paris. And the FA still predicted broken or overcast layers around 4000'. If Tyler and Paris stayed clear and Addison reported rising clouds I would have gone. But since Paris was clouding up I just got an uneasy feeling about everything. And my weather rule for now is ...

If it's obviously good weather then go.

If it's obviously bad weather then don't go.

If it's marginal weather and you can't discern a definite trend then don't go.

So I cancelled. I'm not in a hurry to finish my training, I'm just enjoying myself as it goes along. And besides, I have the week after Christmas off from work so there will be 6 opportunities in a row to go flying!

Stage check flight

Lesson 27 - Stage check

Stage check time. In the Cessna curriculum this check is over cross-country flight planning, weather info, cockpit management and then various x-country flying tasks ... course interception, vor navigation, pilotage, estimating groundspeed, diversions, lost procedures, emergency operations, etc.

My instructor, C, told me to prepare a flight plan from Addison to Bowie (0F2) and calculate takeoff and landing distances as well as aircraft weight and balance. I met one of the chief instructors, S, at 7 this morning for an hour of ground school ... we would go over my flight plan.

I fully expected that we wouldn't be able to fly today. The forecast last night called for gusty winds most of the day, 21 knots gusting to 28, if I recall correctly. And sure enough when I drove to Monarch this morning it was already getting windy though not nearly as bad as forecast.

S and I grabbed a table upstairs in the planning room and started going through my flight plan. Bowie is Northwest of Addison and I could almost draw a straight direct-to course from one to the other but it would cut through a Class B corner where the floor is 2000'. Plus a direct course would take us through Denton's Class D airspace.

Saturday morning being a busy time I decided to avoid the Class D and so I planned to head North out of Addison until I intersected the 285-degree radial from the UKW VOR. This VOR sits about four miles from Bowie. My plan followed that radial almost all the way in, but at my last checkpoint I veer off and head direct to the airport.

S had a few comments about the route. Mainly my choice of checkpoints could have been better. I picked a point on my route where the town of Sanger would be right off my right wingtip. A better point would have been a mile back where my course crossed the interstate highway. And then between that checkpoint and my next one there was a another road crossing that I could have used.

Also, he wants me to use the top of climb point as a line item on my plan. C and I had discussed this when he first introduced me to flight planning. He told me that it was really a personal preference thing .. you could make top-of-climb and top-of-descent checkpoints on your plan or you could integrate the climb and descent into your checkpoints. I chose the latter method.

However, S, suggested that I use the former method as it can be more accurate. Mainly that is because I was using the "Time, Fuel and Distance to Climb" chart figures for the full climb. That chart is based on making a Vy speed climb (best rate of climb speed). And in reality you don't do Vy all the way up to your cruising altitude. You generally climb at Vy until you reach pattern altitude and then you transition into a cruise climb until you reach your cruising altitude. This gives you better visibility over the nose and it increases airflow into the engine.

That makes a lot of sense to me so from now on I will use that "Time, Fuel and Distance to Climb" chart to compute the liftoff to pattern altitude climb and then interpolate from the "Cruise Performance" chart to get the numbers for a cruise climb.

Also, I was computing the aircraft's fuel endurance (for the FAA flight Plan) using total fuel and my cruise fuel burn. But what I actually should be doing is using the "Endurance Profile" chart in the POH because it takes into account the reserve amount, and the fuel used for engine start, taxi, takeoff and climb. During the takeoff and climb especially you are going to use more fuel than the cruise fuel burn.

This kind of feedback is fantastic. I'm looking forward to working on my next flight plan ... which is coming up soon because I'm on the schedule for this Thursday!

Other than those things my planning looked good. We spent the rest of the hour with S asking me questions about the airport I was going to and airports along the route and other things about the flight. He was looking to see that I know how to use the Airport/Facility Directory and that I can read the sectional chart correctly. He also watched while I calculated the takeoff and landing distances for Addison and Bowie. I would have done them before I got there but the METAR for Addison hadn't come out by the time I left the house so there was no time.

After all that, S had me check the weather again and though it was windy out conditions weren't matching the forecast so we decided to go ahead and fly. I went out to preflight the Skyhawk. S told me to expect to time our flight between two checkpoints and calculate our ground speed and then predict our time to the next checkpoint.

The aircraft checked out (except the landing light was out so we labeled it "inop" above the switch) so we hopped in and I started up the engine, radios, etc. The right side of my headset wasn't working. We tried his headset and both speakers worked but the mic was intermittent when we wiggled the plug so hopefully it's not my headset. Since I could hear well out of the left speaker and my mic worked we decided it was OK.

After setting the radios and getting the latest ATIS report we taxied to runway 15. It was pretty quiet this morning, looks like the gusty forecast is keeping a lot of people grounded.

The crosswind take off went really well. S complimented me on it! We were cleared for a right turnout as soon as we hit 2000' it became quiet obvious that the gusty winds were there, just not at the surface yet. We had quiet a crab going as we headed North-Northwest.

We used the timer function built into the NAV radio to time ourselves from the VOR interception until we got to the interstate south of Sanger. It took us 7 minutes to cover 10nm so our groundspeed worked out to 85.7 knots. I told him that we should cross our next checkpoint in 8 minutes. Then I proceeded to keep flying off-course to the left! We actually made our next checkpoint almost 2 minutes late which he attributed to me not staying on course.

Then S told me to divert to Decatur (which was to the South). I noted the time and our position on my sectional. I picked a rough heading which would take us to Decatur and then measured the distance and figured our heading and groundspeed using the E6B and our ETA. Then I pointed out that according to the sectional the nice big very prominant road underneath us would take us right to the airport so I asked it I could just follow that. "Sure, that's fine". So that's what I did. I noticed along the way that our heading was off what I had computed. It seems like some of that stronger wind was starting to arrive and we were having to crab even more.

At Decatur we overflew the field and S asked me to determine which runway I wanted to land on and do an approach (Decatur is uncontrolled). I knew that Decatur had one runway running 17-35 so considering what the wind was doing we needed to land on runway 17. So I turned around and began a teardrop descent to intercept the 45-degree entry to the downwind. S was nice enough to manage the radios for me while I did the approach checklist and fought the wind. We entered the downwind (which was really short because of the wind), turned base and then final. We had a huge crab coming into 17 and I was getting behind the airplane. I mis-judged how much I need to crab into the wind and so it wasn't till I was on short final that I got aligned with the centerline. Just as I as about to change the crab into a slipping approach S called for a go-around.

He chided me on not getting stabalized in the approach early enough, but on the other hand he said I handled the go-around very well.

At this point I think I was starting to get a little overloaded. He started throwing various emergency scenarios at me and I wasn't coming up with the procedures quickly enough. I was a little unhinged by that approach into Decatur and how strong the wind was. But we did do an engine out simulation and I was able to pick my field and circle it while I went through the checklist items. We would have made my field but we tried to get to another field just to see if the strong wind would help us along ... no joy, wouldn't have made it. The original field I picked would have been best.

Now, S handed me the foggles and asked me to intercept and track a radial to the Bonham VOR. I looked up the frequency on my sectional and tuned it in and listened for the ident. It was extremely faint (plus I only had one ear working). After listening intently for a while S said that he could hear it and it was correct. But truthfully, I never heard it. I rotated the OBS until I determined which radial we were on and then S gave me another radial to intercept and track inbound. Easy enough.

While flying along S asked me about the lost procedures. The five C's ... climb, circle, conserve, communicate and comply. We talked about how to do all of that and then he took the controls and had me lower my head and close my eyes. When I regained the controls and the foggles came off I climbed us back up to 3500' and started circling to have a look around. We were already at 95 kias so I didn't change the power setting.

As we swung around to the South a lake appeared. Oh this is too easy ... in front of us was a town sitting between two arms of the lake. A prominent road ran North-South through the town and over the water. To our left was an extremely tall radio tower and beyond the lake (to the South) I could just make out another lake. I told S, well before I communicate with ATC I would try to use the available landmarks to identify my position. And that town, the lake arms, the tower and the other lake in the distance tell me that we're at the top end of the practice area over the town of Tioga. Bingo!

"Take me to Addison", he says. "By the way what heading should we fly?"

I look down at the HSI and since we were already pointed at Addison I said, "Well, we'll fly down along the shore here and that is pretty much a heading of 150." And I pointed at the heading we were currently flying.

"Which heading?" he says.

At that point I realized something was up. Glancing at the compass I realized that the HSI was not aligned. So I was just reading the numbers and not really thinking about what they meant, what they were telling me. And I was not taking into account that the HSI could fail. I was just assuming that it was telling me the truth. Doh! That's bad.

However, I was navigating based on what I saw outside the window and I was oriented correctly and headed in the right direction, so that is good.

I went ahead and dropped down to 2500' and listened to Addison's ATIS before calling up regional approach. Unlike during my solo cross country there was very little chatter on the radio. Regional responded immediately to my call up and cleared us for a straight in approach to runway 15.

It was starting to get a little gusty on the way back and the strong wind had started to descend so we had quite a healthy crab going all the way down to final. I didn't do a very good job of managing the descent and we landed long but not long enough for a go-around. The landing itself was aligned properly and I had the controls set for the cross-wind but I was a few feet off the centerline. C and I need to do some cross-wind practice!

All in all S was happy with my performance and my planning. He did give me a list of things to focus on going forward ...

- checklist use (actually I was doing them in my head but I wasn't always verbalizing it to him)
- coordination, keep the ball centered
- emergency procedures
- always be mindful of what direction the wind is coming from
- keep my head up and looking outside (especially during the calculations I was keeping my head down too long)
- work on energy management on final, if not down by the end of the touchdown zone do a go-around

This is great. There's always room for improvement and I definitely have things I can improve. But I'm also keeping pace with the curriculum and in general my handling of the aircraft is good. Now I'm really jazzed about the long cross-country. Also, though this Skyhawk has an autopilot I never turned it on. And also it has no multi-function display. The GPS has one of those little tiny screens which makes it easy to ignore ... and it has two OBS displays. So I'm going to fly it on my long cross-country. No gps (or autopilot), just pilotage and some vor tracking.

This flight: 1.9 hours
Total: 45.8 hours