inav8r
Line Up and Wait
I finally got to fly my first “really long” XC back to WV to see my family. My flight was from KAID to KHLG (and back). I posted some of the details a while back about flight planning and my excitement for making the trip. Basically, the three previous weekends either the weather or babysitters didn’t work out, so I had to cancel until this weekend.
Last week I watched the weather every day all week. It was like a roller coaster ride – good / bad / good / bad, you get the picture. Ask Greebo, I drove myself nuts watching the weather. Finally on Friday it looked as if the weather was going to cooperate – and while the winds were high on the ground they were going to be at my tail and were supposed to die down as it got closer to dark, I decided to make the decision a “go” and headed to the airport!
After getting into the air (the climb out was bumpy) above 3,500 ft it was smooth as glass. I turned direct towards my destination (thank you Garmin-296c!) and continued on up to 5,500’. I had one heck of a tail wind. The GPS was showing 151 kts across the ground the whole way. I made the trip over in 2.0 hours. I decided to request flight following after I got to altitude – which gave me some much needed practice and helped keep my mind busy. Because I was down low I got handed off to a bunch of different places, but it wasn’t bad at all. I kept on top of my radio calls and the guys / gals at ATC were most kind to me as I made all of the usual newbie mistakes.
About 25 miles outside of HLG I asked Cleveland Center if I could descend to 3,500’ so they handed me off to PIT Approach who kept me at 3,500 until I got over top of HLG before dropping me from flight following. It was starting to get dark so after contacting the tower at HLG I did a series of slips to get down and noticed when I was on short final that I had forgotten to set my flaps! I felt pretty stupid and rather than risk making things even worse, I just did a go around. The next landing approach went much better and I had a nice touch down to the stall horn on RY 21 with the winds from 220 at 12.
On Sunday, my scheduled day of departure, I had expected a storm system to move through early in the day leaving decent weather later in the afternoon so I could get back home (and to work on time on Monday), but I had no such luck. The storm didn’t come through until after lunch time and nearing my desired departure time the winds were at gusting around 30 kts, which is too high for my skill level. I wound up worrying myself sick the rest of the afternoon. Finally, around 6PM I called my boss to tell him that I wasn’t going to be in until after lunch on Monday. He said “No problem!” which made me feel a lot better!
Today I got up to beautiful clear sunny skies. The weather at my home field wasn’t too hot – with low low visibility and fog, but the briefer at FSS said they expected that to burn off as I got closer to home. So I delayed about 30 minutes and then had the line guy top my tanks off and set out on my way home. After climbing out, I asked the tower for a south departure so I could circle downtown – of the town were I grew up – it was pretty cool seeing it from the air for the first time!
According the FSS I was going to be fighting a pretty strong head wind – which got worse the higher I would have gone, so I chose 4,500’ for the return trip. I used my hand off sheet from the flight over to request flight following from Cleveland Center after I got out of PIT Approaches airspace. The gentleman was very polite but insisted on entering my strip as slant Golf – even though our C172 is legally only slant Uniform – but I was navigating by the yoke mounted GPS. I didn’t argue with him – but my voice clearly states “slant uniform but flying direct” on his tapes…
I was above the “haze” layer and the very, very sparsely scattered cloud deck and the air was smooth as glass for the whole trip home. I had only one traffic call out from DAY Approach – which was an IFR C182 that overtook me 500’ below me. The highest speed I saw on the GPS with this mornings head winds was 91 kts…
This time, rather than get dropped from flight following over top of my airport, I cancelled radar services about 15 miles out – which gave me plenty of time to descend and contact the tower vs. the mishap I had on Friday. The tower had me enter a left base for RY 18 where I hit some pretty bad bumps as I descended down through 2,700’ but that smoothed out as I turned final. I greased a really good landing (with flaps this time!) with the winds from 190 at 11.
I burned 13.4 gal of fuel on the way out (2.0 hrs) for a burn rate of 6.7 gph at 5,500’. On the return trip (3.0 hrs), I burned 23.0 gal of fuel for 7.6 gph at 4,500’. I probably need to work on leaning a bit more!
Last week I watched the weather every day all week. It was like a roller coaster ride – good / bad / good / bad, you get the picture. Ask Greebo, I drove myself nuts watching the weather. Finally on Friday it looked as if the weather was going to cooperate – and while the winds were high on the ground they were going to be at my tail and were supposed to die down as it got closer to dark, I decided to make the decision a “go” and headed to the airport!
After getting into the air (the climb out was bumpy) above 3,500 ft it was smooth as glass. I turned direct towards my destination (thank you Garmin-296c!) and continued on up to 5,500’. I had one heck of a tail wind. The GPS was showing 151 kts across the ground the whole way. I made the trip over in 2.0 hours. I decided to request flight following after I got to altitude – which gave me some much needed practice and helped keep my mind busy. Because I was down low I got handed off to a bunch of different places, but it wasn’t bad at all. I kept on top of my radio calls and the guys / gals at ATC were most kind to me as I made all of the usual newbie mistakes.
About 25 miles outside of HLG I asked Cleveland Center if I could descend to 3,500’ so they handed me off to PIT Approach who kept me at 3,500 until I got over top of HLG before dropping me from flight following. It was starting to get dark so after contacting the tower at HLG I did a series of slips to get down and noticed when I was on short final that I had forgotten to set my flaps! I felt pretty stupid and rather than risk making things even worse, I just did a go around. The next landing approach went much better and I had a nice touch down to the stall horn on RY 21 with the winds from 220 at 12.
On Sunday, my scheduled day of departure, I had expected a storm system to move through early in the day leaving decent weather later in the afternoon so I could get back home (and to work on time on Monday), but I had no such luck. The storm didn’t come through until after lunch time and nearing my desired departure time the winds were at gusting around 30 kts, which is too high for my skill level. I wound up worrying myself sick the rest of the afternoon. Finally, around 6PM I called my boss to tell him that I wasn’t going to be in until after lunch on Monday. He said “No problem!” which made me feel a lot better!
Today I got up to beautiful clear sunny skies. The weather at my home field wasn’t too hot – with low low visibility and fog, but the briefer at FSS said they expected that to burn off as I got closer to home. So I delayed about 30 minutes and then had the line guy top my tanks off and set out on my way home. After climbing out, I asked the tower for a south departure so I could circle downtown – of the town were I grew up – it was pretty cool seeing it from the air for the first time!
According the FSS I was going to be fighting a pretty strong head wind – which got worse the higher I would have gone, so I chose 4,500’ for the return trip. I used my hand off sheet from the flight over to request flight following from Cleveland Center after I got out of PIT Approaches airspace. The gentleman was very polite but insisted on entering my strip as slant Golf – even though our C172 is legally only slant Uniform – but I was navigating by the yoke mounted GPS. I didn’t argue with him – but my voice clearly states “slant uniform but flying direct” on his tapes…
I was above the “haze” layer and the very, very sparsely scattered cloud deck and the air was smooth as glass for the whole trip home. I had only one traffic call out from DAY Approach – which was an IFR C182 that overtook me 500’ below me. The highest speed I saw on the GPS with this mornings head winds was 91 kts…
This time, rather than get dropped from flight following over top of my airport, I cancelled radar services about 15 miles out – which gave me plenty of time to descend and contact the tower vs. the mishap I had on Friday. The tower had me enter a left base for RY 18 where I hit some pretty bad bumps as I descended down through 2,700’ but that smoothed out as I turned final. I greased a really good landing (with flaps this time!) with the winds from 190 at 11.
I burned 13.4 gal of fuel on the way out (2.0 hrs) for a burn rate of 6.7 gph at 5,500’. On the return trip (3.0 hrs), I burned 23.0 gal of fuel for 7.6 gph at 4,500’. I probably need to work on leaning a bit more!
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