Mini - Cross Country

Sunday - January 22, 2007
San Carlos Airport (SQL)
9:30am

I love waking up on days when I get to go fly. I feel excited and usually get a few butterflys. I am scheduled to be down on the flight-line at 9:30am this Sunday morning. This is usually when I am finishing my first cup of coffee and watching my political talk shows, ‘Meet the Press’ -none better. Soap Opera’s can’t compete with the series of dramatic events unfolding in our nation’s capital, I digress. It is a really windy day which irks me because it’s a lot of work to fly in windy conditions. It’s been clear and calm all friggin’ week, why today!

I get down to Diamond and get out to N21591 and preflight. Stan comes out right as I wrap up my final walk around and we get in. We are going across the bay to an airport in Livermore which is situated in what is called the East Bay. I knew we were going to be flying to Livermore (LVK) and have memorized the radio settings – atis 119.65, ground 121.6 and tower frequency is 118.1. Stan is impressed as he had me take out my map (sectional chart) and before I could feel too proud of myself there were a few more frequencies I needed to get. We would be crossing the bay and flying right over Hayward Executive airport transitioning to Livermore.

We preflight and run-up the engine then with clearance from the tower we are lights, camera and action! We will be exiting SQL via a departure route known as the Belmont Slough. This is an area of the bay situated just north and east of SQL. As we follow this departure point we sail out over the San Francisco Bay and have I mentioned it is really unbelievable beautiful! I have also mentioned the close proximity of San Francisco airport and how close it is to SQL. We are now passing just a few hundred feet below BIG jets on final approach to SFO! I call up Hayward tower and say, ‘Hayward tower, Cessna two one five niner one, mid-bay, transitioning to Livermore.’ They come back with ‘five niner one maintain one thousand five hundred (feet) or below and squawk 0124 (on the transponder).’ The plane’s transponder registers a unique signal which the air traffic controller can best identify me by. This is the little dark green blip on their radar which transmits heading and altitude. As we cross over Hayward we also pass right underneath a Southwest Airlines 737 on final to Oakland. It is amazing the number of big airports in such close proximity to where I am training. Not to worry as we follow the lanes of the highway in the sky.

It has been pretty smooth sailing up to this point and as we pass over Hayward it gets a little choppy. As we head further inland it is steadily getting more turbulent and then the East Bay Hills loom before me. Before we climb out to 3,000 we pass by the outer ring of the Class Bravo for SFO. We climb out to 3,000 and it is windy as hell and we are getting bumped around pretty good. As we pass over the top of the hills there is a lot of turbulence coming in all directions. I got so busy flying I forgot about even getting motion sickness. I did not mention that before we took off we plugged our course into the flight computer which is attached to the GPS on the instrument panel. Once you plug in the airports you are flying to the moving map pops up and shows you exactly where you are. A directional line also shows you where you are going with the proper heading and airspace information. It tells you what heading you are on and whether you are off course or not. This is very cool! I LIKE!!

So back to the turbulence. I must admit it is unnerving flying in this kind of wind which is about 16 knots and gusts up to 26 knots. I was getting jostled around so much that my control inputs, throttle, etc and radio settings became moving targets. I adjusted to this and got everything done necessary to call up Livermore tower as we passed into the next valley. I called up Livermore ATIS and got the wind conditions, runway in use and the information designation of ‘foxtrot’. I went to call up Livermore tower and the winds began to die down somewhat, only somewhat. ‘Livermore tower, Cessna two one five niner one, at 580 / 680 interchange landing with information Foxtrot’. I got the response ‘five niner one report abeam the control tower maintain one thousand four hundred (feet).’ I fly alongside runway 25R (right) and when I’m abeam the control tower I announce my position as promised and they clear me for a landing (with the option) on runway 25R. ‘With the option’ means I can do a touch – n – go, go around or full stop landing. If it were really busy they could deny me and say full-stop landing.

I make several rights and I’m lined up for 25R and am looking good on my approach with good altitude and airspeed. Because of the winds I have a crab-angle in and we are sliding down to the runway sideways but straight down the centerline. As I get closer to the runway numbers I pull power and then pull back on the yoke and then straighten the nose out with my left rudder peddle. I give it a little right aileron to tilt the plane right so that I stay over the centerline and not get blown to the left side. We are down and a little off of centerline but not too bad really. Stan puts the flaps up and I give ‘er full throttle and we are off again to work the pattern. It is windy as hell and I am fighting the plane to make my patterns square and put in my crosswind corrections so that we get configured correctly for another shot at 25R. We come back around and I get lined up, crab-angle in and glide slope is red over white (good), approach speed is 65 knots (good) and then we get down on the deck and the winds are variable at this point so that it is beyond my capabilities and I relinquish the controls to Stanb so that we get down safely.

Stan and I agree this is too complex for beginning cross-country flying and we head back to SQL. We fly straight out and to the North of the East bay Hills. It is not as gusty here and as we crest the hills we have to descend quickly to get back under the Class Bravo airspace for SFO. We cross back over Hayward and then the beautiful bay towards the outer marker for SQL on the western edge of the bay. The outer marker for SQL is a big, sexy cement plant. I have already called up tower and have a clearance to land. We immediately enter our base leg and then a quick right to final approach and back on the glide slope. Everything looks good as I put in 30 degrees of flaps and a power setting low enough to allow me to lose some altitude quickly. I got red over white and slowly come down to the numbers on the end of the runway. I put in some left rudder but we drift just a little to the left because of not enough right aileron and land ok but not on centerline. As we taxi back Stan says it was a hell of a day flying and that I did a pretty good job handling the plane in the rough wind. I know that I would definitely NOT go out into that sort of wind alone or without a lot more experience.

I had some fun flying out of the safety and comfort of SQL a bit and programming an actual flight to another airport is very cool. I look forward to doing it again next weekend!