The cross-country work continues...
Stan is still out of commision so Dan and I took on another cross-country flight this morning out to Stockton in the San Joaquin Valley. I've become more efficient with my flight planning and now my time in the air exceeds my time on the ground plotting the charts. It was a really beautiful day in the Bay Area and with a review of my flight plan by Dan while I did my pre-flight on N5204A we eventually hopped in and were off to KSCK (Stockton).
We opened our flight plan on the ground with Oakland FSS (flight service station) and with a right downwind departure we turned East to follow a heading that I had not only charted on paper but had programmed into the GPS before taking off. You can program GPS way points into the system which aren't visible (necessarily) from the ground. They show up on the moving map and make for a nice tidy way to verify certain features against what's outside the window. We flew out at an altitude that did not make for the most expeditious route, 5,500ft, but made for a better way to slow things down while in the climb and get my bearings. I got flight following and am constantly amazed at the amount of air traffic in the vicinity that you don't see but hear about.
I had a really nice flight out and feel pretty comfortable with all of the aspects of a good cross-country. I made a pretty sweet landing at Stockton and we inverted our flight plan and proceeded to make a left crosswind departure out of Stockton for some training on how to use the autopilot feature of our Cessna 172S. Once we climbed out to an altitude of about 3,500ft Dan instructed me on the really easy to use autopilot. Turn it on and once you have achieved your desired heading and altitude you press the altitude button and heading button and the plane is now on cruise control. To adjust your heading and altitude is just as easy and it can really take a load off the pilot as the autopilot flies with very tight tolerances aaaannndd maybe holds altitude and heading better than me at this point. I really can do all of these things pretty well but it takes a lot of work to constantly tweak the controls. FYI, when you fly commercially and except for take-offs and landings that sucker is pretty much on autopilot. I really like the autopilot feature and plan to us it liberally when cruising for distances at a time.
We also practiced diverting to another airport when your primary route and destination must be discontinued for any reason, fog, runway closures, etc. Diverting can be, well, a diversion from flying the airplane. You get out your chart and measure the distance with the straight edge that measures distance and also determine where you are and where the alternate airport is located. You also have to figure time and fuel burn to the alternate airport. You do this by determining where you are and then circle this area until you literally get your bearings. Then move on to the alternate airport all the while flying the airplane and maintaining altitude. This will all be part of the FAA checkride so it's a safe bet I will have done a lot of diverting on the ground to different airports in the area before getting in the plane.
After 'diverting' our flight for a few minutes we took a tack back to San Carlos where I did a few soft field landings and greased those in for a nice day of flying. I really wished we could have stayed out a little while longer. I was fresh and on top of my game. Next week is a little ground school lesson and then a stage check. This will be what's called a Stage II check for my cross-country. This means I will be endorsed to fly to certain airports that are more than 50 nautical miles from San Carlos airport. I cannot wait because I am getting really bored flying to Hayward and Palo Alto. I have also been endorsed to take my FAA written exam this next week. I have been doing pretty well on the practice exams so feeling confidant that I should do OK. It is a lot of work to get your private pilot's certificate. I have over 70 hours of training in the plane and have been attending course classes (ground school) every Thursday for 3 hrs since January of this year. Interesting stuff though and I love to do it all. It is also nice to be learning something complex since leaving college. Keeps the neurons firing on all cylinders.
-russ
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Hollister
I didn't ride into Hollister on a motorcycle as depicted in the movie, 'The Wild One'. I did however make a bad-ass teardrop in for a nice 45 degree entry to downwind on runway 24. The x-countries continue...
Stan's wife underwent surgery this last week and will be out of commission for several weeks. Stan and his wife have three little girls which means my main flight instructor will be out of commission at least as my instructor for several weeks as he tends to his brood. Enter Dan my interim instructor until Stan is back on line. I like this guy. He differs from Stan in several positive ways and I may retain him as my instructor when I get my instrument cert. His style of instruction has a more finessed touch it. I like Stan but sometimes get a chapped hide from his blistering critiques with slight twinges of impatience. Stan has made me a very diligent pilot and for this I am grateful to have been learning from him. Dan has a good sense of humor which makes flying with him feel more enjoyable and relaxed. I am pretty proficient these days and need a little minor tweaking but otherwise I am really doing some nice flying.
We took off yesterday from San Carlos for a 55 mile trip down to Hollister along the beautiful Santa Cruz mountains with the Monterey Bay off to my right. I had a great preflight and nailed my radio calls to open my flight plan and get flight following from Norcal Approach. One thing I have never had before was clearance into Class B (Bravo) airspace. The Class B airspace surrounds SFO and is airspace that surrounds the bigs like NY, Dallas, Chicago, you get the point. It is taboo to go joyriding in this airspace unless you get clearance from a controller who must say 'YOU ARE CLEARED INTO THE SAN FRANCISCO CLASS BRAVO'. They can call out your tail sign a thousand times but until you here those words keep out. They typically vector (give headings) 747's coming in from the Pacific right over San Carlos. They are at 5,000 ft or more but you don't want to get too close and can't with the airspace restrictions. So anyway I got the Class B clearance. Must have been a lag in big jets coming in from Asia. I climbed out to 5,500 and locked on to the Woodside VOR then Dan showed me a few tricks to lock on to the VOR using my GPS and then enter some way points also right into the GPS as well. This was really helpful and I had a lot of fun cruising down the SF Peninsula. I had the Bay to my left and the Santa Cruz mountains to my right with the Monterey Bay off the right tip of my nose. Damn nice place to learn to fly. You see this stuff on commercial carriers but usually you are staring at one portion of it out a little porthole of a window - usually with some jackass sitting in front with the seat leaned all the way back. It's like flying in bloody steerage class! Cessnas are slower but you get a better view.
We passed over Lexington Reservoir then Uvas Reservoir and over Gilroy before descending in to Hollister for a landing. Hollister is an interesting airport because it does not have a control tower. It is still a very busy airport with glider operations and big tanker planes carrying fire retardant materials to those ubiquitous California wild fires we experience during this time of the year. You gotta watch your tail feathers when maneuvering around that airport.
I made a great landing and took off Northwesterly for our trip back to San Carlos. The flight was great and we were 'stepped down' into Class B airspace in no time to get down to under 3,000 ft for our approach into SQL. As soon as I passed over the salt ponds on the outer edge of the Bay the wind really picked up. Pretty soon I got clearance to land and was angled in to the left crosswind to keep my ground track moving towards the centerline for runway three zero. As I crossed over the runway threshold I powered to idle and kicked in right rudder and left wing low to keep moving down the centerline of three zero. The wind was at max for my Cessna and I had to really fight off getting blown to the right. Dan gave me a little help as I touched down to the right of centerline despite my efforts. I then wobbled around a little bit on the runway like a drunk duck forgetting to keep the yoke to the left which keeps the plane from being being blown further to the right. OY! It really pissed me off that my perfect flight had such a sucky landing to finish. That was some serious wind and I was glad to have Dan in the plane with me. I am going up with Dan again this Friday and will be practicing all my maneuvers which I had scheduled before just to make sure I am sharp for the runup to my FAA check ride. We will be practicing landings and if the winds are right I can get in some good cross-wind landings also.
Good day and despite my sketchy cross-wind landing I felt like I had a really strong flight.
-ciao,
russ
Stan's wife underwent surgery this last week and will be out of commission for several weeks. Stan and his wife have three little girls which means my main flight instructor will be out of commission at least as my instructor for several weeks as he tends to his brood. Enter Dan my interim instructor until Stan is back on line. I like this guy. He differs from Stan in several positive ways and I may retain him as my instructor when I get my instrument cert. His style of instruction has a more finessed touch it. I like Stan but sometimes get a chapped hide from his blistering critiques with slight twinges of impatience. Stan has made me a very diligent pilot and for this I am grateful to have been learning from him. Dan has a good sense of humor which makes flying with him feel more enjoyable and relaxed. I am pretty proficient these days and need a little minor tweaking but otherwise I am really doing some nice flying.
We took off yesterday from San Carlos for a 55 mile trip down to Hollister along the beautiful Santa Cruz mountains with the Monterey Bay off to my right. I had a great preflight and nailed my radio calls to open my flight plan and get flight following from Norcal Approach. One thing I have never had before was clearance into Class B (Bravo) airspace. The Class B airspace surrounds SFO and is airspace that surrounds the bigs like NY, Dallas, Chicago, you get the point. It is taboo to go joyriding in this airspace unless you get clearance from a controller who must say 'YOU ARE CLEARED INTO THE SAN FRANCISCO CLASS BRAVO'. They can call out your tail sign a thousand times but until you here those words keep out. They typically vector (give headings) 747's coming in from the Pacific right over San Carlos. They are at 5,000 ft or more but you don't want to get too close and can't with the airspace restrictions. So anyway I got the Class B clearance. Must have been a lag in big jets coming in from Asia. I climbed out to 5,500 and locked on to the Woodside VOR then Dan showed me a few tricks to lock on to the VOR using my GPS and then enter some way points also right into the GPS as well. This was really helpful and I had a lot of fun cruising down the SF Peninsula. I had the Bay to my left and the Santa Cruz mountains to my right with the Monterey Bay off the right tip of my nose. Damn nice place to learn to fly. You see this stuff on commercial carriers but usually you are staring at one portion of it out a little porthole of a window - usually with some jackass sitting in front with the seat leaned all the way back. It's like flying in bloody steerage class! Cessnas are slower but you get a better view.
We passed over Lexington Reservoir then Uvas Reservoir and over Gilroy before descending in to Hollister for a landing. Hollister is an interesting airport because it does not have a control tower. It is still a very busy airport with glider operations and big tanker planes carrying fire retardant materials to those ubiquitous California wild fires we experience during this time of the year. You gotta watch your tail feathers when maneuvering around that airport.
I made a great landing and took off Northwesterly for our trip back to San Carlos. The flight was great and we were 'stepped down' into Class B airspace in no time to get down to under 3,000 ft for our approach into SQL. As soon as I passed over the salt ponds on the outer edge of the Bay the wind really picked up. Pretty soon I got clearance to land and was angled in to the left crosswind to keep my ground track moving towards the centerline for runway three zero. As I crossed over the runway threshold I powered to idle and kicked in right rudder and left wing low to keep moving down the centerline of three zero. The wind was at max for my Cessna and I had to really fight off getting blown to the right. Dan gave me a little help as I touched down to the right of centerline despite my efforts. I then wobbled around a little bit on the runway like a drunk duck forgetting to keep the yoke to the left which keeps the plane from being being blown further to the right. OY! It really pissed me off that my perfect flight had such a sucky landing to finish. That was some serious wind and I was glad to have Dan in the plane with me. I am going up with Dan again this Friday and will be practicing all my maneuvers which I had scheduled before just to make sure I am sharp for the runup to my FAA check ride. We will be practicing landings and if the winds are right I can get in some good cross-wind landings also.
Good day and despite my sketchy cross-wind landing I felt like I had a really strong flight.
-ciao,
russ
Monday, June 11, 2007
Going X-Country
I was just reading my last posting and mentioned something about how the writing was going to be coming along, etc., etc. & blah, blah, blah. I may have mislead here because the writing has really been non-existent. In reality my x-countries have been in a holding pattern a bit due to Stan's unavailability, my unavailability and some cancelled flights due to wedding showers and, oh, what's that? Yes, Stan forgot to show up to one of the lessons!
I neglected to write about the last x-country I flew with Stan that was pretty exciting and beyond the limits of the Bay Area and allll of the flying I do in the vicinity of SQL. By the way a x-country is defined as flight of +50 nautical miles or more. Nice to get out and, well, stretch me wings a bit. We flew to Columbia this last May. Columbia is an old gold mining town in the Sierra Foothills. I can tell you that I spent more time planning for this flight than the length of time the flight actually took. I had to determine weather which includes weather and temperatures at San Carlos, Columbia and the weather aloft in between the two airports. I figured out our course headings, time en route and fuel burn (to-ing and fro-ing) and wrote it down on my flight planner pages. Stan and I briefed and then headed out to the plane which I already had preflighted. I called for a right downwind departure and we hopped across the Bay to Coyote Hills and turned East to a direct heading straight out to Columbia.
I used different types of basic navigation techniques. One called pilotage (used in the 1920's by airmail pilots) requires that you note distinct landmarks along your route from ones you noted on your aeronautical charts like lakes, reservoirs and mountains. We are really lucky to have very distinct land marks in N. Cal with big mountains and large bodies of water like oceans. Dead reckoning allows you to navigate by using elapsed time, true speed, wind direction and compass heading. I was surprised by how accurate these techniques turned out to be. We are also really lucky to have GPS. If the GPS is working and you know how to use it properly YOU CANNOT GET LOST.
When we left San Carlos we called up Oakland Flight Service Station on 122.5 and opened my VFR flight plan., pretty easy. I then learned how to get what's called 'flight following'. You call up Norcal Approach on a certain frequency, 135.65 in this instance and tell them who you are, where and what altitude you are and where you are going. They issue you a special transponder code and become your fairy godmother. The look out for other aircraft that are in the area along your route and will advise you of where they are and how you can avoid them, verrrry cool. This all went well and we sped along with a nice 10 knot tailwind at about 120 knots and were up to 5,500 ft in no time. We cruised on a heading toward a VOR station called Manteca VOR which is a radio navaid. If you tune into a VOR there is an instrument on your panel with a needle that centers when you set your course indicator on one of the radials going out around the VOR station in 360 degree increments. Set the course for 090, for example, and then turn the plane until the needle is centered and you will be on a heading towards that station and you will know where you are. There is even a to/from feature that lets you know when you have passed over the station. Lot's of ways NOT to get lost.... and I'm pretty sure I will find them (ways of getting lost) eventually. It all looks different when you are in the air.
We flew for about 35 minutes when we got close to Columbia and even though I had the GPS working I was really trying to navigate by the dead r. and pilotage. I got one of the bodies of water wrong that I marked as a way point when we were approaching Columbia. What can I say, they aren't labeled like they are on the charts. Then I looked at the GPS and got back on course. Loving the GPS. We made it in and I cut the 45 degree to a downwind too short so I went around and landed, sort of pretty well. This is an airport that does not have a tower so you have to announce who you are and what your stated intentions ar for landing. You sincerely hope that other pilots are doing the same.... sometimes they don't as we found out when we took off again. Another plane decided to take off in the opposite direction of the runway we were about to take off from, basically head on.... niiiiice! But I was looking and we missed him.
We cruised back and it was pretty easy with Mt. Diablo looming 100 miles in front of me I just had to aim for it and scoot to the left a little to make it back in to the Bay Area and back to San Carlos. My attempt at calling up Norcal Approach leaving Columbia was awful and I managed to embarrass my instructor by announcing what a rookie idiot I am to all pilots in the area including the major carriers. These guys are generally on Norcal Approach before being handed over to Oakland tower or SF tower, etc. Stan got pretty hot and lectured me a bit on practicing in my head what I'm going to say before I depress the mic button. If you ever see me in my car and my lips are moving odds are I am not singing along to my car radio however practicing what I am going to say to Norcal Approach or some other facility. Smooth sailing across the California Central Valley however and into the Bay Area with what I would consider a very nice landing back at home base, SQL.
Russ
I neglected to write about the last x-country I flew with Stan that was pretty exciting and beyond the limits of the Bay Area and allll of the flying I do in the vicinity of SQL. By the way a x-country is defined as flight of +50 nautical miles or more. Nice to get out and, well, stretch me wings a bit. We flew to Columbia this last May. Columbia is an old gold mining town in the Sierra Foothills. I can tell you that I spent more time planning for this flight than the length of time the flight actually took. I had to determine weather which includes weather and temperatures at San Carlos, Columbia and the weather aloft in between the two airports. I figured out our course headings, time en route and fuel burn (to-ing and fro-ing) and wrote it down on my flight planner pages. Stan and I briefed and then headed out to the plane which I already had preflighted. I called for a right downwind departure and we hopped across the Bay to Coyote Hills and turned East to a direct heading straight out to Columbia.
I used different types of basic navigation techniques. One called pilotage (used in the 1920's by airmail pilots) requires that you note distinct landmarks along your route from ones you noted on your aeronautical charts like lakes, reservoirs and mountains. We are really lucky to have very distinct land marks in N. Cal with big mountains and large bodies of water like oceans. Dead reckoning allows you to navigate by using elapsed time, true speed, wind direction and compass heading. I was surprised by how accurate these techniques turned out to be. We are also really lucky to have GPS. If the GPS is working and you know how to use it properly YOU CANNOT GET LOST.
When we left San Carlos we called up Oakland Flight Service Station on 122.5 and opened my VFR flight plan., pretty easy. I then learned how to get what's called 'flight following'. You call up Norcal Approach on a certain frequency, 135.65 in this instance and tell them who you are, where and what altitude you are and where you are going. They issue you a special transponder code and become your fairy godmother. The look out for other aircraft that are in the area along your route and will advise you of where they are and how you can avoid them, verrrry cool. This all went well and we sped along with a nice 10 knot tailwind at about 120 knots and were up to 5,500 ft in no time. We cruised on a heading toward a VOR station called Manteca VOR which is a radio navaid. If you tune into a VOR there is an instrument on your panel with a needle that centers when you set your course indicator on one of the radials going out around the VOR station in 360 degree increments. Set the course for 090, for example, and then turn the plane until the needle is centered and you will be on a heading towards that station and you will know where you are. There is even a to/from feature that lets you know when you have passed over the station. Lot's of ways NOT to get lost.... and I'm pretty sure I will find them (ways of getting lost) eventually. It all looks different when you are in the air.
We flew for about 35 minutes when we got close to Columbia and even though I had the GPS working I was really trying to navigate by the dead r. and pilotage. I got one of the bodies of water wrong that I marked as a way point when we were approaching Columbia. What can I say, they aren't labeled like they are on the charts. Then I looked at the GPS and got back on course. Loving the GPS. We made it in and I cut the 45 degree to a downwind too short so I went around and landed, sort of pretty well. This is an airport that does not have a tower so you have to announce who you are and what your stated intentions ar for landing. You sincerely hope that other pilots are doing the same.... sometimes they don't as we found out when we took off again. Another plane decided to take off in the opposite direction of the runway we were about to take off from, basically head on.... niiiiice! But I was looking and we missed him.
We cruised back and it was pretty easy with Mt. Diablo looming 100 miles in front of me I just had to aim for it and scoot to the left a little to make it back in to the Bay Area and back to San Carlos. My attempt at calling up Norcal Approach leaving Columbia was awful and I managed to embarrass my instructor by announcing what a rookie idiot I am to all pilots in the area including the major carriers. These guys are generally on Norcal Approach before being handed over to Oakland tower or SF tower, etc. Stan got pretty hot and lectured me a bit on practicing in my head what I'm going to say before I depress the mic button. If you ever see me in my car and my lips are moving odds are I am not singing along to my car radio however practicing what I am going to say to Norcal Approach or some other facility. Smooth sailing across the California Central Valley however and into the Bay Area with what I would consider a very nice landing back at home base, SQL.
Russ
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