Dmitri Scheidel
Pre-Flight
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2016
- Messages
- 53
- Location
- Northern California
- Display Name
Display name:
NorCali.Pilot
Hello everyone!
This is my first post here. Another member of the aviation community recommended I drop by here and check it out. I've read some posts and I really like it.
ANYWAYS... I took to big of a bite for my first solo cross country last week (July 27), which is also the extended cross country with 2 other stops. My plan was to go from my base at Concord, CA (KCCR) to Monterey, CA (KMRY) then to Modesto, CA (KMOD).
I use a sim for my at home training and I have a addon scenery its called for Monterey, California. I live here in Northern California just east of San Francisco, so I thought it would be cool to try to navigate around San Francisco's Class B airspace and go to Monterey regional airport as my first stop. I'm not endorsed to fly into B airspace so I plotted my flight to go east to Livermore country (KLVK) then over some VFR check points to San Jose (SJC) then direct to Monterey (KMRY). It was all set and planned out and looked really nice on paper.
One hour before I got the plane, my CFI sat down with me and we went over the whole plan. He was concerned that it may be a bit hard because of a TFR that has been active 3nm. south of Monterey airport for fires (it's fire season in California... and this will play a key role in what went wrong if you are starting to piece it together). But I told him that winds are from the South so they will be using the runways so that I will enter the traffic pattern away from the fires and he said okay. (now since im typing this, I realize why what happened happened) And with that he endorsed me to fly the long XC and I was off on my own.
Start up, taxi, run up was all smooth until I called ready for departure. I will admit, I was being a little c@cky on the radios and wasn't using the same words for read backs. Tower told me to line up and wait 32L and I called back (position and hold), right after they cleared a plane to land 32L so I swerved back onto the taxiway and asked if I was supposed to enter the runway. Tower said yes and defined taxi into position and hold for me. (a plane was over the number 32L so I thought there was going to be a runway incursion.) On the upwind towered asked my for my direction of flight, I got nervous and Said south on a heading of 158o. I now know that wasn't correct wording. After a minute or so I called for a freq. change and got cleared to the next freq. Here's the next thing that went wrong. Since I'm in the cluster that is the bay area, there are TONS of frequencies that are in use. All of the training flights have been to the North, and we usually contact Travis AFB approach for initial flight following. This was my first time going south, and Travis doesn't reach there, so I had to use a new freq. that was on the sectional which was NorCal app. I called up, did a position report and got flight following and everything was set...
A few minutes later, I saw a layer of haze (surprise, the smoke from the fires!!) just over Livermore and thought nothing of it and continued, then the visibility started to drop slowly. First I lost sight of the Santa Cruz mountains about 30nm away (I'm used to being able to see extremely far as weather North of Concord is always clear skies, which is what the south was reporting, but this layer of smoke/ haze was new). Then the controller called me up and reported traffic in my area, I couldn't see because visibility was decreasing, in total, 3 aircraft were in my area, and I only saw the 1 Southwest 737.) I was right over Livermore airport at 3,500FT (planned alt was 7,500 but the haze was worse up there so I tried lower but ended up lower than the terrain I had to cross) when I hit it hard and didn't see anything. I was in defined IMC. So I executed a level 180 turn and got out of there, of course NorCal app called me out on the radio and said to not due that ever because he is directing traffic. And I made my way back to KCCR. I had a minute and decided to text my insructor telling him I'm heading back. He said so way I could of been in IMC because all airports in the area are skies clear and vis. +10 miles.
Ultimately, sure, I could of pushed on to KMRY with near legal minimums, but I'm a low hour student pilot, it was my first time flying south, there was traffic close to me I couldn't see, I was too low to be able to clear the upcoming terrain, I was alone, I was dealing with many frequencies, my whole flight plan was visual references (that were masked by the smoke), and it was later in the day. I know I should of taken the southern winds as an indication that the smoke would be right in my flight path, and should of called up 1800.WX.Brief for conditions, but that is a service I don't know how to use very well.
I know it's long but a lot happened, but I hope others can learn from what I did and not end up in the situation that I was in where I was somewhere new in really bad conditions.
*photo posted is right before I entered the smoke. It is what I initially saw*
This is my first post here. Another member of the aviation community recommended I drop by here and check it out. I've read some posts and I really like it.
ANYWAYS... I took to big of a bite for my first solo cross country last week (July 27), which is also the extended cross country with 2 other stops. My plan was to go from my base at Concord, CA (KCCR) to Monterey, CA (KMRY) then to Modesto, CA (KMOD).
I use a sim for my at home training and I have a addon scenery its called for Monterey, California. I live here in Northern California just east of San Francisco, so I thought it would be cool to try to navigate around San Francisco's Class B airspace and go to Monterey regional airport as my first stop. I'm not endorsed to fly into B airspace so I plotted my flight to go east to Livermore country (KLVK) then over some VFR check points to San Jose (SJC) then direct to Monterey (KMRY). It was all set and planned out and looked really nice on paper.
One hour before I got the plane, my CFI sat down with me and we went over the whole plan. He was concerned that it may be a bit hard because of a TFR that has been active 3nm. south of Monterey airport for fires (it's fire season in California... and this will play a key role in what went wrong if you are starting to piece it together). But I told him that winds are from the South so they will be using the runways so that I will enter the traffic pattern away from the fires and he said okay. (now since im typing this, I realize why what happened happened) And with that he endorsed me to fly the long XC and I was off on my own.
Start up, taxi, run up was all smooth until I called ready for departure. I will admit, I was being a little c@cky on the radios and wasn't using the same words for read backs. Tower told me to line up and wait 32L and I called back (position and hold), right after they cleared a plane to land 32L so I swerved back onto the taxiway and asked if I was supposed to enter the runway. Tower said yes and defined taxi into position and hold for me. (a plane was over the number 32L so I thought there was going to be a runway incursion.) On the upwind towered asked my for my direction of flight, I got nervous and Said south on a heading of 158o. I now know that wasn't correct wording. After a minute or so I called for a freq. change and got cleared to the next freq. Here's the next thing that went wrong. Since I'm in the cluster that is the bay area, there are TONS of frequencies that are in use. All of the training flights have been to the North, and we usually contact Travis AFB approach for initial flight following. This was my first time going south, and Travis doesn't reach there, so I had to use a new freq. that was on the sectional which was NorCal app. I called up, did a position report and got flight following and everything was set...
A few minutes later, I saw a layer of haze (surprise, the smoke from the fires!!) just over Livermore and thought nothing of it and continued, then the visibility started to drop slowly. First I lost sight of the Santa Cruz mountains about 30nm away (I'm used to being able to see extremely far as weather North of Concord is always clear skies, which is what the south was reporting, but this layer of smoke/ haze was new). Then the controller called me up and reported traffic in my area, I couldn't see because visibility was decreasing, in total, 3 aircraft were in my area, and I only saw the 1 Southwest 737.) I was right over Livermore airport at 3,500FT (planned alt was 7,500 but the haze was worse up there so I tried lower but ended up lower than the terrain I had to cross) when I hit it hard and didn't see anything. I was in defined IMC. So I executed a level 180 turn and got out of there, of course NorCal app called me out on the radio and said to not due that ever because he is directing traffic. And I made my way back to KCCR. I had a minute and decided to text my insructor telling him I'm heading back. He said so way I could of been in IMC because all airports in the area are skies clear and vis. +10 miles.
Ultimately, sure, I could of pushed on to KMRY with near legal minimums, but I'm a low hour student pilot, it was my first time flying south, there was traffic close to me I couldn't see, I was too low to be able to clear the upcoming terrain, I was alone, I was dealing with many frequencies, my whole flight plan was visual references (that were masked by the smoke), and it was later in the day. I know I should of taken the southern winds as an indication that the smoke would be right in my flight path, and should of called up 1800.WX.Brief for conditions, but that is a service I don't know how to use very well.
I know it's long but a lot happened, but I hope others can learn from what I did and not end up in the situation that I was in where I was somewhere new in really bad conditions.
*photo posted is right before I entered the smoke. It is what I initially saw*
