jesse
Touchdown! Greaser!
I went to KDSM (Des Moines) last night to meet up with a friend. It was a pretty uneventful flight on the way there and was able to get flight following for the entire flight. This was my first experiance with a class C airport.
The controllers were extremely nice and told me to enter a base for runway 23. Well this would have been easy. If I could see the airport / runway. One thing I've noticed about larger airports is they always have their runway lights extremely low which works great for all their IFR flights that are coming in. But VFR it's very difficult to see it until final. I was about 4 miles out and still wasn't exactly positive about the airports location I knew I was looking at the beacon but didn't see any runways. I then asked them to turn the lights up and boom there the runway was.
I landed and requested progressive taxi to Elliot Aviation and they were happy to help me with that. When I taxed up to Elliot Aviation there was two line guys out there but the one guy just stood there. I continuted to taxi towards him and he finally just pointed to an area. I was guessing there is where he wanted me to go. I park there and look at the line guy to see him giving the "this guy is an idiot" sign to the other line guy. I shutdown and he comes up and told me he didn't want me here. I asked him why he didn't use the approriate hand signals and he looked at me like I was nuts. I of course knew at this point he was just an *******. The other line guy walked over and they both just stood by my prop. I was gathering my stuff for 5 minutes or so they and they continuted to just stare at something. At this point I thought something was wrong so I ask them if there is something I should know about, they said no. I then went inside and looked out the window and they continued to stare at my prop / nosewheel. Not sure what they were so amazed over.
Later that night I came back and took the girl I flew there to meet up for just basically a sight seeing type deal. As I climbed out of the airport it was extremely rough and turbulent so I was trying to get out of that ASAP as it was her first time in a small plane. Approach was nice about letting us fly around wherever we wanted.
When I came back to land as soon as I got to about 1000 AGL it was back to the turbulent windy air. I lined up on final approach and was having a hell of a time on the approach . I was of course making sure she was aware this was OK. I came in over the runway and got the plane to about 5 feet above the runway. For the *FIRST* time ever, I did a go around. I could not get this thing to where I thought it was a good idea to let it touch down. I then just said it was no big deal, we'll just make another shot at the landing.
I then turned to final again and ran into the same crap. Was all over the place. Tower told me that the winds aloft at 1,000 feet they were told was about 50 knots. I think a lot of that was rolling off all the buildings that surround the airport. I then decided if it didn't work this time we were just going to have to fly somewhere else which I didn't really want to do because I'd have to somehow get her home.
This time though with the rudder to the floor and tons of aileron I was able to get it to where it was safe to let it touchdown.
I then dropped her off and departed back to Rochester it was about 4am by now. The flight back to Rochester was uneventful and the winds were typical in rochester. About 15 knots, but none of the insane winds aloft and windshear. I made very good time back to rochester and had a ground speed of about 190 knots in the Sierra.
I have a few pictures but most of them were just her blasting away with the camera.
Here is where I was trying to show her how to go straight and level:
the sierra
Time: 3.8 hours, but there was quite a bit of sightseeing in there... Which puts me at 110 hours, and eating ramen noodles for at least a month.
The controllers were extremely nice and told me to enter a base for runway 23. Well this would have been easy. If I could see the airport / runway. One thing I've noticed about larger airports is they always have their runway lights extremely low which works great for all their IFR flights that are coming in. But VFR it's very difficult to see it until final. I was about 4 miles out and still wasn't exactly positive about the airports location I knew I was looking at the beacon but didn't see any runways. I then asked them to turn the lights up and boom there the runway was.
I landed and requested progressive taxi to Elliot Aviation and they were happy to help me with that. When I taxed up to Elliot Aviation there was two line guys out there but the one guy just stood there. I continuted to taxi towards him and he finally just pointed to an area. I was guessing there is where he wanted me to go. I park there and look at the line guy to see him giving the "this guy is an idiot" sign to the other line guy. I shutdown and he comes up and told me he didn't want me here. I asked him why he didn't use the approriate hand signals and he looked at me like I was nuts. I of course knew at this point he was just an *******. The other line guy walked over and they both just stood by my prop. I was gathering my stuff for 5 minutes or so they and they continuted to just stare at something. At this point I thought something was wrong so I ask them if there is something I should know about, they said no. I then went inside and looked out the window and they continued to stare at my prop / nosewheel. Not sure what they were so amazed over.
Later that night I came back and took the girl I flew there to meet up for just basically a sight seeing type deal. As I climbed out of the airport it was extremely rough and turbulent so I was trying to get out of that ASAP as it was her first time in a small plane. Approach was nice about letting us fly around wherever we wanted.
When I came back to land as soon as I got to about 1000 AGL it was back to the turbulent windy air. I lined up on final approach and was having a hell of a time on the approach . I was of course making sure she was aware this was OK. I came in over the runway and got the plane to about 5 feet above the runway. For the *FIRST* time ever, I did a go around. I could not get this thing to where I thought it was a good idea to let it touch down. I then just said it was no big deal, we'll just make another shot at the landing.
I then turned to final again and ran into the same crap. Was all over the place. Tower told me that the winds aloft at 1,000 feet they were told was about 50 knots. I think a lot of that was rolling off all the buildings that surround the airport. I then decided if it didn't work this time we were just going to have to fly somewhere else which I didn't really want to do because I'd have to somehow get her home.
This time though with the rudder to the floor and tons of aileron I was able to get it to where it was safe to let it touchdown.
I then dropped her off and departed back to Rochester it was about 4am by now. The flight back to Rochester was uneventful and the winds were typical in rochester. About 15 knots, but none of the insane winds aloft and windshear. I made very good time back to rochester and had a ground speed of about 190 knots in the Sierra.
I have a few pictures but most of them were just her blasting away with the camera.
Here is where I was trying to show her how to go straight and level:
the sierra
Time: 3.8 hours, but there was quite a bit of sightseeing in there... Which puts me at 110 hours, and eating ramen noodles for at least a month.
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, Doesn't look like "she" took any of these, but I certainly understand.
