Cross Country & Dodging Thunderstorms

My long awaited xc flight happened today. The weather, as usual around here, was iffy but good enough to fly. I planned routes to two different destinations over the past week so that if the weather was bad one way, I could go another direction. Then once I had every thing ready I tried flying one of the routes on my flight simulator for practice.

I wanted to see if I could do it with just what I had in my lap. It was difficult, and I could not use pilotage skills on the flight simulator because there is no real-world scenery I can use in my area - I don't blame them, Houston is not a scenic place! But it would be nice if someone would develop some Houston area scenery for those of us who are marooned here and working towards our pilot's license. So anyway, I had to use dead reckoning on the flight sim. I found that I needed a decent lapboard, and airport diagrams with all the necessary frequency info in an easy to access form. Also, I was using flight planning forms where I had figured out course info, and right before my virtual flight, I had gathered all the virtual weather info and adjusted the resulting heading I needed to fly and ground speeds after wind was factored in. I found that these forms were a headache because the airplane's airspeed indicator is in mph and everything else is usually in knots. Plus during the flight weather conditions change so the adjustments to headings will have to be easily recomputed during the flight. So the flight sim was really useful for identifying what I needed to bring to the real flight.

The first thing I did was to make a flight planning spreadsheet, which I could upload to my cellphone. I made one which I must say is pretty versatile. I enter the calibrated airspeed from the aircraft in mph, and it computes the true-airspeed in knots with the altitude tweak built in. Then everything else is in knots. Before flight, or during, I enter the wind direction and speed, and it computes true heading etc. So it turned out pretty well. The only drawback is the cell-phone sized display, but it worked out alright.

So I got to the airport about an hour before and made some last minute preparations. Then the CFI got there and we talked about the plan. He seemed impressed at how prepared I was, especially with the airport diagrams and information sheets I had ready which I downloaded from AOPA. We looked at the weather situation, and decided to go to Palacios - a distance of 81 miles from the airport (something clicked in my head saying "yeah the weather's ok to Palacious, but how is it going to be on the way back? Then the thought was replaced by other concerns.) The weather decided to put a spin on things and the wind was blowing from the north for a change. So for only my 2nd time, I took off from runway 32. With full tanks of gas and two adults, the C150 slowly climbed to 2500' and I began my first leg to Bay City. There were a group of 3 small lakes that I picked on the map as landmarks, and I found them pretty easy. It was cool seeing my flight plan in action. I re-verified the weather conditions at Bay City, and updated my flight plan with the changing wind data. After the group of 3 lakes, I easily picked out other landmarks along the way. Bay City airport was difficult to spot. I learned that if you're coming in at right angles to the airstrip it's hard to spot. But when I did find it, I was nearly on top of it. The CFI was happy about that... so was I! That was a 55 nautical mile leg. Then I turned to Palacios. During that leg, the instructor said "Ok, let's assume you are completely lost and need to find out where you are. How do you do that?" I picked 3 VORs on the map to use to pinpoint my position. I really only needed 2, but the CFI wanted me to use 3. Two of the VORs pointed right to my position. The 3rd one from Schole's Field was at least 20 degrees off! WTH? The CFI double checked that one and he got the same thing. Can anyone explain that? I'd really like to know why that one was off. I guess that's why you need 3 VORs. So we made our way to Palacious and landed. It was only after landing and taxiing that it hit me - I did it! I successfully got us all the way over here. Very cool :) So we taxied over to take off again.

On the way back the CFI wanted me to call FSS to have them do flight following. One thing I am a bit concerned about for when I do this on my own, is how the heck am I going to understand them? I relied on the CFI to interpret what they were saying. It's one thing to learn what to say and when, but I can't even understand half of what they're saying on the radio. We requested flight following back to the airport. They came back and advised against it because of deteriorating weather conditions... Doh! CFI said to tell them understood, but we would request flight following anyway. We then requested weather info for Bay City. They said to stand by, and after 2-3 minutes we got tired of waiting and just went ahead and pulled up ASOS for Bay City on the radio. It was fine. We decided to land there and check out the radar at the FBO. This was actually turning out to be really good training because I'm learning what to do when weather fouls up your way home. We landed at Bay City and went to the FBO. There were some nice people there who showed us everything they had - which wasn't much. Just a radar of Texas and a few surrounding states. Not really good enough for determining weather conditions beyond Bay City. So we decided to try and make it to South West airport, which is a bit north of the route back to Pearland, and see how the rest of the route looked from there. I went a head and used my GPS for this impromptu route planning. On the way to South West I looked at the direction back home and it looked possibly rainy, but ok - no thunderstorms that way. So we re-routed again and headed back towards Pearland. All this was really good training I thought. When I make the solo xc I'll go during absolute blissful weather, but it's good to know what to do if things start looking bad. We actually made it all the way back to Pearland without even rain. By the time we got there it was sunny skies. I guess the storms moved off to the south.

When we landed the CFI asked if I thought I was ready to do that flight on my own. It was all pretty straight forward, so I said "Yeah, I can do it". He ok'd me to do it whenever I'm ready. I'll have to look at my budget to see when I can make it happen. I'm really excited to have this xc under my belt and am looking forward to the solo. I'm going on vacation for a week and a half in August and was wondering how much I had left to do for my license. It would be really pushing it to get it done by then and would probably blow my budget anyway.

By the way. As I write this, there are thunderstorms with lightning striking all around me, and the wind is really picking up. It's great to watch... when you're on the ground!

Here's the ground track:

Solo practice and photos

I was planning on flying solo this morning, but I only had an hour scheduled, and someone else had the plane right after that. So I rescheduled for tomorrow morning. Then this afternoon I saw the weather was so nice (except for being too hot of course) that I had to go fly, and the plane was available all afternoon. So I went at about 4pm to fly. And here's some of the pictures I promised:


I started off with a touch & go. The visibility was so nice. It was mostly clear and little haze. After that I was going to go to the usual practice area and do some stalls, but noticed there were some cumulus clouds there and some rain. So I stayed to the SE where I flew up to 3500' and did some stalls. Technically there's not much to them, and I can do the maneuvers fine. But I feel uncomfortable doing them as the plane stops generating lift and begins the fall. It's not a big deal, but just something where I can think of more fun things to be doing. Then I practiced turns and maintaining altitude, and stopping the turn at a pre-determined heading.

All that went well. I familiarized myself with a few more features on my GPSMAP 96c. It does help with navigating around airspaces which are plentiful around here. Did I mention the visibility was great!? Visibility was listed on the metar as 10sm. But I could see one of the large hotel buildings on Galveston island from at least 25 miles away. Clear Lake and Galveston Bay looked beautiful, and there were tons of sail boats out there.

Here's the view towards Galveston island. As I was flying around, I heard a lot of traffic on the KLVJ frequency. Looks like others had the same idea to take advantage of the weather. Speaking of the weather, I noticed that it had started getting hazier west towards the airport. It was getting late, so I decided to start heading back. I saw Ellington airfield and remembered it's a Class C airspace and tried to stay south of it. With the sun ahead of me, it was hard to see very well on my GPS where I was in relation to the airspace. But I had a map with me, and was able to stay south of it.

No, I'm not doing a nose dive in this picture. Note the wings are in a slight bank to the left. This is a view of Kemah and Clear Lake behind it. (btw, Clear Lake is not in any way clear). I headed back to the airport and the busy pattern to do a couple of landings. There was a slight cross wind and I managed to land fine anyway. I took off again, and heard someone approaching the airspace from the south. I didn't hear how far out they were, but soon saw them approach the downwind leg before I got there. I had to do a slight maneuver and entered the pattern behind them. By the time I came around to land again, there was an even stronger crosswind. Looking at the windsock, it must have been almost 15 kts. Probably about a 10 kt crosswind component. I dipped the crosswind side of the plane and applied opposite rudder, and the landing was pretty good.

After I turned to taxi off the runway, I looked up and saw this picture. My jaw dropped. It was almost clear for most of the flight. I hadn't even noticed this thunderhead building just to the west of me. The weather forecast forecasted clear skies but ASOS did mention some lightning to the west. I snapped this picture and stowed the plane. As I was tying it down I saw lightning. It was only 2 miles away! These storms sure can barrel their way in quickly. It was a very enjoyable flight, but I'm glad I made it back when I did.

Sometimes you just gotta fly!

Some people say he's crazy, but it sounds like he planned his trip well. Way to get up there Kent Couch!

Aero-News.Net

I saw that Aero-News.Net did a write-up about my blog. Thanks guys, and welcome Aero-News.Net readers :)

Navigating clear skies

The rain finally seems to be over for a while. We had a clear sky with a few scattered clouds. I could actually see where I was going this time. And speaking of going somewhere, we started working on navigation today. It was a blast. After some stall practice at 3500', we headed from Wolfe field over towards Smith Point on the other side of Galveston Bay about 30 miles away. I had been using the VOR in my flight simulator at home, and it certainly helped when using the real thing. I had to hold an altitude of 1500' and a heading of 77 degrees. It became much easier once I had my trim set and found a point to aim to once the plane was pointed in the right direction. Which was good, because the trip over there was quite scenic. (I must remember to take pictures next time.) We flew over Galveston Bay which is a busy shipping lane into Houston. I was just taking in all the sights.

We got to Smith Point and I did see that little VOR which was making all the racket. I circled around it until I could get my nav configured for the flight to Schole's Field in Galveston. This was a Class D airport - my first controlled airport since my earlier flying days. I called in on the way over there and got an acknowledgment. I told them I wanted to do a touch and go but they said the pattern was too full and that I could do a full stop, come around and then take off again. Then they directed me to the base of runway 17. Apparently I have better eyes than my CFI because I saw the airport about 3 minutes before he did.

My mom came to visit last weekend and had seen me practicing landings at Schole's Field on my simulator. Galveston Island is basically a narrow strip of land that hugs the Texas coast. The airport is a large airport and takes up over half the width of the island. She saw me approaching the runway with water all around and got all excited. "One screw up and you'll land in the ocean!" "Mom... I just have to get down to the runway. If I can't land on the runway then I'm going to have difficulties no matter which airport I go to." Mothers... lol!

I asked the CFI if I was supposed to come into the downwind leg at a 45 degree angle like I was used to in my other pattern work. He said no, they said to fly right into base. So I did and radio'd my position as I did. The CFI said I didn't have to announce my position on final though - which is good because I have enough on my hands at that point. We made a good landing other than being left of center (and I managed to stay out of the ocean even!), and then the Tower said to go ahead and do a 180 back to the start of the runway and take off. I got about 200 yards from the foot & my CFI said that's good enough. So I turned around and prepared to take off. Tower called and said my Cessna didn't have enough room and to go back to the start of the runway LOL - would you two make up your mind?! So I went back to the start, turned around, and started to throttle up. CFI stopped me and said to tell them I'm ready. Doh! "Galveston, Cessna 593 ready to take off." "Cessna 593 you are cleared to take of." Thinking back, I knew the procedure because I read it. I need to put that into real world knowledge.

So we took off with a view of the ocean before us and waves crashing on the beaches to the right & left of us, entered a right hand pattern to exit, set up my nav equipment for a VOR heading of 330 away from Schole's Field, and flew to that heading. The VOR didn't seen to be responding at all. CFI said this can't be right. I double checked the map, and he looked at it too. Then he realized it should have been a heading of 300. Doh again! I had slapped together a flight plan with the wrong heading. So I corrected myself and we went looking for the 300 degree line from the VOR and flew back home.

There were significant crosswinds this time, so landing was a little sloppy. He had me go around again, and it was better that time. These things will take practice, which I need to do in my solo time.

We went over the trip back at the clubhouse and talked about what's coming next. Thursday I will solo again, and then sometime next week we will go on a cross country flight to Lake Livingston :) I had been camping there before, and it takes a while to drive there. It will be interesting flying there this time. Then after that comes the solo cross country. This is all so fun. I can't wait for more.

On my own

Today I was scheduled to go up with the CFI to work on more ground reference maneuvers, which the CFI wanted me to go over again because there weren't much winds the last time I did them. The weather today was cloudy at about 1500-2000 ft and no winds. I called the CFI and said the weather didn't look good for any of the maneuvers we planned on doing. He agreed, but thought it was still a good opportunity for me to go solo and get more practice with the plane on my own. I was happy to do that.

I also mentioned that I had been going over a bunch of material on navigation. Yesterday I learned to use a flight computer, and solve navigation problems with it. I also told him I was working on my flight simulator to practice maneuvers, landings, radio, and navigation equipment. He seemed impressed and said that even rudimentary simulators have helped his students out a lot when they started learning about the navigation equipment. So I suggested that since we've been having a lot of low wind days that perhaps we could move on to cross country in the meantime and when a day came up with winds we would concentrate on ground reference maneuvers. He agreed. So it looks like next tuesday I will start with that :)

Now for today... I eagerly went to the airport over a long lunch break. The first solo flight is exciting, but the instructor is still with you in the plane for most of that lesson, and on the radio watching from the ground for your solo part. Today I am really on my own. I check the winds at the airport, and call the local ASOS for the weather report. Pre-flight the plane (the C-150 today). Power everything up, taxi out to the runway, do the pre-flight check list and take off... all on my own. I felt relaxed though and excited, even though the weather was crap - again. I'm not going to know what to do with myself when we get some clear skies!

So I'm up in the air now... now what? Where do I go? I had planned on going out to the usual practice area and practice my ground reference maneuvers, but instead I thought "Why not do the obligatory buzz-my-house maneuver" instead? I used my new GPSMAP 96C to navigate over to my house. I couldn't believe how fast I got there! It's normally about a 20 minute trip to the airport. But in the air it's only about 5 minutes due to traveling about twice the speed and no traffic - or traffic lights for that matter. Seriously... I am sick of traffic, traffic lights and speed limits! I just got a ticket the other day for going 48 in a 30. But not now. Now I am in a plane and if you go 30 you fall out of the sky. So I press on at 85-90. In the sky the only speed limit is Vne. So I fly over to my house, call my wife on the cell phone and say "Come out and look!". I see her and my 3 kids come out on the driveway and wave. I wave the wings and fly on. I do find a field though were I can fly ground reference maneuvers. The tricky part about them for me at this point, is maintaining my altitude while I circle around. I will have to work on that in upcoming solo flights. While flying over the field, I notice some other birds (seagulls I think) flying at about the same area at the same altitude I am. This concerns me. I hope they are watching out for me.

Then I fly back up north to the airport, and find it pretty easily. I do 2 touch & gos and a full stop landing. Put the plane away, secure it, file the paper work. It felt great to take the plane out for a spin today, and as always I look forward to the next time.

The Cessna 150

My plan for today was to get certified on the Cessna 150. I thought it might be a stretch to get both of us in the plane with only 400 lbs of weight for him and me, but I wanted to at least get certified so I could do my solos in the C150 which would be cheaper than the 172. I woke up to lots of rainy weather today, and the CFI called to tell me the bad news. This was not flying weather. I agreed. So I started looking at when I could do my next lesson, and checked the weather. I saw that today, afternoon, the rain would stop, the winds would be non existant, and the visibility & cloud ceiling would be improving. So called him back and we were back on for today - just a couple hours later than planned.

Before flight I had to fill out the airplane quiz on the V-speeds and other information about the plane. Then we got going. Now that I saw the C150 up close, I saw that it was in better condition than I thought it was. We started off doing a couple of landings. I don't know if it was the still air, or the plane, but it landed very nicely. Then we did the turn maneuvers again for the C150 checkout. And then the CFI cut off the power. I was about 1000 ft up. I set the proper glide slope and looked for a place to land. There were no obvious straight strip of road I could use, so I looked for a nice grass field and found one back behind my left shoulder. I did a 180 and lined up for a landing on a strip of grass that probably would have made a pretty good short grass runway. I was high though and after adding full flaps, decided my only option was to do a slip to drop some altitude. This is where you dip one wing and apply opposite rudder to crab the plane and drop altitude without increasing your airspeed. I had only read about them and hadn't done one, at least not successfully, before. This time it worked very well and 20 ft above ground CFI was happy with my almost-emergency-landing, so I pushed the throttle back to full and ascended again. I found my way back to the air port. We did some more landings and then the instructor told me to stop and let him out. So I was going to get certified in the C150 today then :) I breezed past my 3 landings and I was done. Again, I don't know if it was the still air, or the plane, but I really liked it. I told the CFI since the plane seems to handle us ok, that I would like to do the rest of my lessons in the C150.

He said he would like to do another lesson on the good ol' ground reference point maneuvers again (if we ever get some significant winds), and then I would start my solo practices. Then after that would be the cross country flights. I am really looking forward to those because it will take me beyond where I have been in my lessons from before when I first started flying. Then I'll feel like I truly am back on track for my private pilot's license. My next lesson is next thursday. I am hoping for some winds! (But not too much ;) lol)