Images from Star Trek I came to mind as the tiny Enterprise nervously navigated its way through V'ger's "airspace". Hailing V'ger it receives an alien reply. Respond incorrectly and the Enterprise would be destroyed. The best I could hope for is to give the correct response and have my CFI replaced by a mechanical replica to aid in further communication to Vger and to accomplish my mission - to land at the heart of Vger.Can you tell I was nervous about this lesson? I needed experience with control towers so we dedicated today's lesson towards control tower work. After doing this, I would be ok to do my long cross country to College Station (a controlled airport) this Sunday. I arrived early this morning to get started. My CFI said we would be first going to HOU, then to Sugar Land, then Galveston, and finally Ellington. All controlled airports, but thankfully only HOU is Class B. After going over the plan, I went to get the keys for the C172 I scheduled. It was supposed to be back now from its long wing repair where corrosion was found. I was surprised to see that it was red-flagged, meaning it was not in flying condition. The log said the avionics had a bad fuse. My usual C150 was already booked, and there was no one to talk to to get the scoop on the 172. There was an opening in the schedule on the 150 after lunch though. So I went on to work.
Through out the morning the weather deteriorated. At 12:30 though I went on to the airport for my 1:00 scheduled flight. It was pouring! The streets were starting to flood. Yet I continued my drive to the airport. When I got there, the rain stopped and my CFI was looking over radar maps on the internet. He then called 800-WX-BRIEF, which of course told him it was marginal VFR at best. After about 10 minutes of purusing animated radar maps we determined that the bad weather still over our heads was the last of it, and it was moving out of our planned route. So we were off.
I learned not to approach Vger directly. Just fly alongside its airspace and let them know of my presence. They seemed nice. No death rays yet. They told me to fly towards the Astrodome and wait to be contacted again. I did, and took in the improving view. The storm had cleansed the air and visibility was really good, with some cool looking clouds to the SW. Then HOU had us follow a Bonanza to the airport, which I did. He was much faster than me. I was directed to a runway reserved for tiny planes like mine and landed, taxi'd, and parked - all under the watchfull eye of Vger. Actually it wasn't so bad. The CFI & I sat in the C150 while we waited for clearance to get to us. It was a looooong wait. I said something about them not having time for us little guys. The CFI said he was talking to one of his pilot buddies who was a CFI and was at LaGuardia in a small plane like this with his student. And like us, they were waiting for an eternity while ATC granted permission to one large jet after another to depart. Finally he had his student call clearance again to request to depart. They said it would be a while. Then the instructor got on, without identifying himself, and said "C'mon, let the little guy go". Thinking it was one of the jumbo jet pilots talking, they relented and let them go LOL. We didn't have to resort to those measures. We were finally cleared to depart. So I went off to Sugar Land airport, That one was less intimidating. We landed, taxi'd, took off to the next leg, which was Galveston. On the way over there I was able to get in some instrument time. By now Galveston was starting to become familiar territory. When we taxi'd back to the runway, ATC warned us not to go to the threshold because it was barricaded there... yeah, the ones the CFI told me to bypass the other night LOL. So we entered the runway at the next to last entrance and took off.
On the way back, the CFI asked if I felt comfortable enough to do towered airports now. I said not the Class Bs, but other than that, yeah. He said there's not much reason to go into Class Bs, so that's good enough. We got back and I rounded the day off with a really nice cross wind landing. I showed him my flight plan for flying to College Station. He approved it, so I'll be ready to do that Sunday :)
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