bluesky74656
Line Up and Wait
Thursday night I took a friend of mine out to dinner at Primo Barone's out at KFKL, Franklin, PA. He had an early flight out Friday morning and had a room booked at one of the airport hotels at Cleveland Hopkins, and asked if I could drop him off there after we landed at Burke. I figured we'd be well past CLE's evening push and I had a good reason to go, so why not just fly into Hopkins and get him shuttled over.
I called Atlantic, who has taken over the IX Jet Center FBO, and asked about fees. I was told that for a small single it would be $40. I figured what the heck, I'll do that to get this one in the log book.
So, on the way back from dinner, I called up Cleveland Approach near the Chardon (CXR) VOR. They gave me a my squawk, bravo clearance, a heading and a descent, then after just a few minutes told me to make right closed traffic for 6L and VFR descent at my discretion.
They were landing on 6L and departing on 6R, and although there were a number of regional jets departing there was no one else landing; so I kept my pattern pretty tight but didn't come screaming in to the runway. The landing was pretty nice if I can say so myself, and tower had me exit the runway on November and hold short of 6R, and then quickly cleared me across 6R and told me to contact ground on point 7.
Now, I had looked up all the frequencies in Foreflight on the way in and had them stacked up nicely in my radios so I could quickly flip to the right one. Unfortunately Hopkins has multiple ground frequencies, and with no way of knowing which they were using I just picked the first one. That did not end in point 7, so I had to quickly flip pages on Foreflight to find the right frequency, dial it in and call up. From what I had read about flying into class bravo airports before I was expecting ground to be full of rapid fire complicated directions. I got "Taxi to Atlantic via Lima and Lima 2." No problem.
Before the flight I looked up EdFred's flight on Operation:Fly to see what he experienced getting into and out of the FBO. He had rave reviews for the place, but it had since been bought out by Atlantic, so I didn't expect to get the same great treatment he experienced. I was *very* pleasantly surprised. The woman behind the desk was extremely friendly, called the shuttle to take my friend to the hotel, and when I went to pay the ramp fee she said not to worry about it, and "Thanks for slumming it up with us today." I was beyond impressed with them, and given a good reason to fly in there would easily do so again, and easily recommend it to anyone flying in from out of town.
On the way out I got the ATIS and called clearance for the short flight back to Burke. Ground gave me similarly simple instructions, but here's the one part of the trip that I think didn't go so well.
As I was taxiing out, I wasn't sure whether or not I needed to be cleared into one of the pads along the taxiway to do my runup. Rather than ask, I looked and saw that the next plane in line behind me was still at the opposite end of the runway, so I figured I'd just pause for 30 seconds to do a quick runup before I took off.
As I was getting close to the runway, Ground called me to ask if I was ready to go. I said I needed just a minute for a quick runup. He told me there was no time for that here and started giving me directions back to the runup pad. Rather than waste 10 minutes for the extra 30 seconds I needed, I told him I was ready to go, figuring I could do a quick check on the takeoff roll just as easily.
Here's the weird part: Ground cleared me for takeoff. Once I got into the air I wasn't sure who I was supposed to be listening to. I ended up flipping between the two channels so that I could catch a call on either, and it was Tower that ended up calling me and giving me further instructions.
I gather the way it was supposed to work is that Tower wanted me to call up ready to go as I was nearing the end of the runway. In hindsight, I probably should have just handled the runup way back near the FBO and eliminated the whole problem. In fact, the best thing for me to do would have been to do that, then request the intersection departure from November. That would have gotten me out of everyone's hair sooner, got me in the air sooner, and left me with at least 4500 feet for departure.
Overall I'd say I was most impressed with how easy it was. I was easily accommodated, and it really wasn't much different than landing at any other controlled airfield.
The only real area that I can improve upon next time is just to be ready to depart as soon as I get to the end of the runway, whether that means running up on the ramp, on one of the runup pads, or just planning on doing it on the roll. Other than that one little hiccup, I'm quite happy with the experience.
I called Atlantic, who has taken over the IX Jet Center FBO, and asked about fees. I was told that for a small single it would be $40. I figured what the heck, I'll do that to get this one in the log book.
So, on the way back from dinner, I called up Cleveland Approach near the Chardon (CXR) VOR. They gave me a my squawk, bravo clearance, a heading and a descent, then after just a few minutes told me to make right closed traffic for 6L and VFR descent at my discretion.
They were landing on 6L and departing on 6R, and although there were a number of regional jets departing there was no one else landing; so I kept my pattern pretty tight but didn't come screaming in to the runway. The landing was pretty nice if I can say so myself, and tower had me exit the runway on November and hold short of 6R, and then quickly cleared me across 6R and told me to contact ground on point 7.
Now, I had looked up all the frequencies in Foreflight on the way in and had them stacked up nicely in my radios so I could quickly flip to the right one. Unfortunately Hopkins has multiple ground frequencies, and with no way of knowing which they were using I just picked the first one. That did not end in point 7, so I had to quickly flip pages on Foreflight to find the right frequency, dial it in and call up. From what I had read about flying into class bravo airports before I was expecting ground to be full of rapid fire complicated directions. I got "Taxi to Atlantic via Lima and Lima 2." No problem.
Before the flight I looked up EdFred's flight on Operation:Fly to see what he experienced getting into and out of the FBO. He had rave reviews for the place, but it had since been bought out by Atlantic, so I didn't expect to get the same great treatment he experienced. I was *very* pleasantly surprised. The woman behind the desk was extremely friendly, called the shuttle to take my friend to the hotel, and when I went to pay the ramp fee she said not to worry about it, and "Thanks for slumming it up with us today." I was beyond impressed with them, and given a good reason to fly in there would easily do so again, and easily recommend it to anyone flying in from out of town.
On the way out I got the ATIS and called clearance for the short flight back to Burke. Ground gave me similarly simple instructions, but here's the one part of the trip that I think didn't go so well.
As I was taxiing out, I wasn't sure whether or not I needed to be cleared into one of the pads along the taxiway to do my runup. Rather than ask, I looked and saw that the next plane in line behind me was still at the opposite end of the runway, so I figured I'd just pause for 30 seconds to do a quick runup before I took off.
As I was getting close to the runway, Ground called me to ask if I was ready to go. I said I needed just a minute for a quick runup. He told me there was no time for that here and started giving me directions back to the runup pad. Rather than waste 10 minutes for the extra 30 seconds I needed, I told him I was ready to go, figuring I could do a quick check on the takeoff roll just as easily.
Here's the weird part: Ground cleared me for takeoff. Once I got into the air I wasn't sure who I was supposed to be listening to. I ended up flipping between the two channels so that I could catch a call on either, and it was Tower that ended up calling me and giving me further instructions.
I gather the way it was supposed to work is that Tower wanted me to call up ready to go as I was nearing the end of the runway. In hindsight, I probably should have just handled the runup way back near the FBO and eliminated the whole problem. In fact, the best thing for me to do would have been to do that, then request the intersection departure from November. That would have gotten me out of everyone's hair sooner, got me in the air sooner, and left me with at least 4500 feet for departure.
Overall I'd say I was most impressed with how easy it was. I was easily accommodated, and it really wasn't much different than landing at any other controlled airfield.
The only real area that I can improve upon next time is just to be ready to depart as soon as I get to the end of the runway, whether that means running up on the ramp, on one of the runup pads, or just planning on doing it on the roll. Other than that one little hiccup, I'm quite happy with the experience.
..