First Cross Country is Done!

As I sit and type this, I am quite tired but I'd trade this kind of tired for just about anything. My flying day started at 1:00 PM (1300 CST or 1900Z). I had N733NB reserved until 5 PM but with the weather we had today I don't think anyone, other than myself, would be crazy enough to want to fly today. The ceiling was unlimited, the temp was about 50 degrees F and the sky was blue but at takeoff time, we had winds from 150 at 20k gusting to 28k. That is WINDY. Luckily for me, the crosswind component was small for every airport we had on our trip. An interesting thing is that every airport on this trip had a 17/35 runway so my crosswind components were easy to figure out.

When I got to the airport we had to do our preflight and it took a lot longer than we expected. I had done some of the calculations ahead of time but Richard wanted me to do them in front of him so I had to redo everything. I later I realized that we made a slight miscalculation in that all of the courses were magnetic instead of true. What that means is when we got to the point of calculating of course heading we were off by 5 degrees. The reason is that when doing anything that involves a magnetic heading, it will be off because of a variance in the magnetic field of the Earth. There are really 2 North Poles. There is the actual North Pole and the magnetic North Pole and they are quite different. If you plot a "true" heading, you must adjust it for magnetic variance. Our area has a variance of 5 degrees to the East or -5 degrees. What all of the gibberish means is my initial headings that I gave to Richard we off by -5 degrees since I had already taken the variation into account.

Once we finally got airborne, we headed into a stiff headwind. I rotated at 60k but my ground speed was only about 35k. We got to Rockwall in about 12 minutes. after entering the pattern, I did a very ugly crosswind landing (are you seeing a pattern here?) so Richard had me do another one. We needed to kill a little time and he wanted to make me do it again, so around we went for number 2 (no nasty remarks here). I did a lot better so off we went up again and made a climbing left hand turn to track my outbound course for Gainesville. This was a big turn as we went from 150 degrees to 299 degrees. We climbed out and headed in a northerly direction. I had 2 checkpoints between my next airport, T31 (Aero Country - 22 nm and 18 min away) and Pilot Point (a small town on the South side of lake Ray Roberts 39 nm and 18 minutes away). Incidently, this is where my GS was very high. My GS to Rockwall was 88k while my IAS (Indicated Air Speed) was 110k. On the Northernmost leg, my GS was about 135k with and IAS of 105k. Quite a tailwind, eh?

We finally made it to Gainesville in about 27 minutes (58 nm) where once we announced ourself entering the pattern, were promptly greeted by a Citation on our butt. we had slowed up to about 90k IAS and she was probably doing 160k. We had the right away since we were in front of her. Once we finally turned base and then final we did our T&G and high tailed it out of there to get out of her way. We did another climbing left turn to get up to altitude and head for Kickapoo Downtown in Wichita Falls (KCWC). Before we got out of KGLE airspace, we finally got to watch our Citation jockey land. She called a short final 5 miles out. I could land an Airbus A380 on a 5 mile final with the winds that we had.

So now we are on our last leg of this flight plan. It was the longest leg at 65 nm. With our wind situation, I should have been carrying a GS of 111k which would put me into KCWC in 38 minutes (give or take a minute or two). I hit all of my check points perfect except for Nocona (F48). I misread my map and was thinking it was the Town of Henrietta so I changed my course to put me in position to track my intended course. Richard soon started asking me what I was doing and to look at the map closely. That's when I realized what I had done and had to correct so I could get us into KCWC instead of getting into the Sheppard Air Force Base airspace. After the renegade Citation pilot, I didn't need a T38 checking my prostrate. I finally got us on the ground in Wichita Falls and followed the nice lineman to park at the FBO where we received very good service, inexpensive fuel (inexpensive to us but to you MOGAS types, it will be expensive. $4.29/gal of 100ll. I actually make money on that kind of price) and a place to relieve any built up pressure. Of course I called my very concerned wife after we got inside and my concerned brother also. I also called my really good friend, who has been encouraging me to complete my training, Michael Saperton. Michael is a pilot and we both share the memory of a good friend who got me interested in doing this but who also was taken from us much too early. I will always remember Brian while I fly. I think that every time I fly it puts me closer to heaven where I can be a little closer to him. We all miss him.

I closed my flight plan with FSS, paid $90.09 for 21 gallons of fuel, filed a new flight plan and we were ready to head out.

We took off at about 5:18 PM and headed back to TKI. Remember that we are technically still in winter, so the days are short. Sunrise is 7:24 AM and Sunset is 5:56 PM. Do you think I can make it back to McKinney in 38 minutes (104 nm) with an 18k headwind? So we set out and I did what I needed to do, other than dial in the wrong VOR out of KCWC, but I did track the correct course. By now the wind is starting to die down from 25k to about 15 k so I don't have quite the same headwind but it is still a daunting task flying into it. I got learn a lot about the accuracies of the VOR system. They are extremely accurate close in but get sloppy the farther out you get from them. I was tracking my course dead on, even after I flew between two TV antennas that were 3000 ft MSL (2000 ft AGL) and was about 10 degrees off course. I looked at the map and saw where I was supposed to be and fixed it. After we entered the DFW Class B airspace (we didn't enter it technically. We flew under the shelf that started at 4000 ft MSL) and were still tracking to McKinney, I asked Richard if we could do an ILS approach. It was dark by now and we weren't too far away. I did this because we would have had to enter on the upwind leg in the pattern and fly a whole lot more. I was getting tired and I like flying ILS approaches (I've only done two in my life but I really was intrigued by them). So Richard had me cancel our flight plan and we made a mad dash to the FLUET NDB. The tower granted our ILS approach and we made our way to the localizer. Richard had me do a couple of minor course corrections to intercept cleanly and I did OK for my first night landing (not technically because it didn't occur one hour after sunset), even though I brought in too much power but was able to get it down and slowed down to exit the Charlie taxiway.

Just writing this down has me tired but I am so happy that I get to try it again, solo, on Sunday. as I was typing this, I went and changed my time for Sunday from 12 - 4 to 11 - 4. I think I learned my lesson about giving yourself a cushion. Thanks to everyone who has kept me going through this and to Brian who I hope is watching and not playing with his SIM.

Sorry for no pictures from the air, but I did not need anymore distractions. I understand why autopilots are such wonderful instruments and not the work of lazy people.

733NB In All Of It's Glory

My E-logbook

Preparing For My First Long Cross Counntry

A couple of weeks ago I decided that I would follow Richard's advice and go on our first long cross country. This one is going to be a long one, 3 hours long. He gave me the places that he wants to go and had me plan the trip myself, but asked me to walk across the street and let him look at it for final approval. Our flight plan will take us from KTKI (McKinney) to F46 (Rockwall) to KGVL (Gainesville) then stop at KCWC (Kikapoo Downtown Wichita Falls). we will refuel in Wichita Falls then intercept the V355 airway at an intersection called HUNKI and take it to UKW (the Bowie VOR station) and then take a direct course back to TKI. Below is a track that I did on SkyVector.com.

The track of my first cross country.

This trip should take 3 hours in a Cessna 150 but I'll be flying a 172. The 172 has a much higher cruise speed so I may be throttling back quite a bit to stretch this out. We will be working on several things. My ability to track a course and correct for wind, ability to see if I am on course by using dead reckoning and finding objects on the map as checkpoints. we'll also be working on my ability to find radials off of several VOR stations and maybe alter our course if we need to kill some time.

Lastly, I need this to start getting caught up on hours that I lost last year because of my job and all of the travel. My new job won't have me traveling so much and I have made a very concerted effort to fly as much as I can this year. When January is over, I will have flown over 4 hours. Tis is already 20% as much as I flew all of last year.

I'll be posting a recap of the flight sometime later in the week. I can't wait.

Happy New Year

After starting a new job, I finally got the time to do some flying. This is going to be a little difficult because I will be working 8:30 to 5:30 every weekday and fighting traffic both directions so it looks like I'll be flying weekends now. Maybe when we get into the long Texas summer months, I'll have some time in the evenings.

After attending the first flying club meeting of the year (my first since July) I had to run to the airport with our president. He was giving a demo ride to a prospective club member and needed to see if 29U had enough fuel for the flight. If not, I was going to bump my time in N733NB back an hour so he could use it.

When I got to the airport, I saw a newly built Legend Cub. This is a replica of an old Piper J3 Cub. I saw him getting fuel at the FBO and then another one showed up. It was an awesome sight as they both taxied out and took off one after the other. I couldn't believe how quickly this thing was airborne. They each did 3 touch and goes (to a full stop because they are tail draggers) then took off to the South for what looked like a fun day of flying.

I had to run back home and get my bag and headset for my 3:00 PM departure time. When I got back, I had already pre-flighted the plane, filled out the logbook and had Richard's door open. I was ready. Too bad the dead calm wind that was there 2 1/2 hours earlier was gone. I now had winds from 330@12 gusting to 22. This went from solo work on turns about a point to cross wind landings again. My first couple of landings were not quite up to snuff. So I kept working on them and I think I may have made a break through. Instead of using flaps to get me down at a steeper angle, Richard had me slipping to a landing and all of a sudden, I was hitting the center line again and doing it quite smoothly.

After I was getting a lot better, we went out to the practice area near Lucas to do some turns about a point. Even with some pretty serious distractions, I was able to do what I wanted to accomplish. Since we were just outside of McKinney airspace, we continued to monitor the frequency and was told to look out for traffic on a straight in final just west of our position. After he was gone, we asked for a straight in approach for a couple more touch and goes. On our approach, we flew near a friend's house in Fairview and wagged my wings at him ( I told him that I would do that every time I flew over).

We did a couple more touch and goes and finally a full stop to parking. I was tired but glad to see that I may be finally overcoming some of my cross wind demons.

Now to prepare for my long cross country at the end of the month.

My E-Logbook.