XC KAPA to KABQ

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GauzeGuy

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Jul 12, 2012
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KBJC
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GauzeGuy
Beautiful day to fly today! I decided to spend a few days in New Mexico, so as soon as weather allowed for it, I departed Centennial early this afternoon and just arrived at KABQ. Although we needed the snow in CO, its nice to be away from slushy roads and snow packed taxiways.

The flight down was great. Springs Approach pointed out a KC-135 that would be cutting across V389 in front of me inbound to KCOS, that was sure cool to see! Things got bumpy when closer to the cumulo granite further south, I climbed to 12500 to get out of it, but not having oxygen that was a short lived deal. I though living in Colorado would make it no big deal, but I was surprised at how immediate and significant the effects of that altitude were. I stayed at that altitude for maybe 15 minutes to be well above the terrain then dropped down to 10500 again when emergency landing sites were more available again. The pulse ox I have in my flight bag didn't work (dead batteries), so I wasn't about to test the theory of whether I'd be good for the legal 30 minutes or not.

Denver approach for the KPUB area was nice enough to coordinate a hand off with Center, so that was cool. I'm used to just being dumped off to 1200 land when outside of Denver's sector. Denver Center was very cool to work with as well. She let me know that radio comms were spotty in the area, and gave me ABQ Center's freq and a location to contact if comms were lost. With the extra altitude that didn't happen but it was sure helpful to know where to head next.

I was a bit surprised at how quick things started to happen around KABQ. Multiple hand-offs when closer in, ATIS was tough to pick up until closer in due to the mountains. I kept a lot of altitude when going over the mountains to the East of KABQ, so I had to slam dunk myself into runway 30. I figured it would be better to have too much altitude, than not enough.

Anyway, with multiple XC trips to several states now, I'm surprised how much I keep picking up on. Quite the change from early December when I was struggling to finish up my PPL.

Lessons learned on the way down:

1. Flight following is a great tool. So nice to just be handed off from airspace to airspace and they know more or less what's going on already. Also not running into other airplanes is a great thing too!
2. Just because its legal, doesn't make it a good idea. I'm not going over 10500 again without oxygen on board.
3. Extra batteries for the pulse ox would be a good thing.
4. VOR navigation is less than ideal with terrain around. Good thing the dual GPS and foreflight were working.
5. Keeping the speed up while taxing down a runway on an unfamiliar airport is not always a good idea. It helped the tower controller to get the next arrival in but I just about blew past my turn. I think I'll be doing an "unable" next time, or at least taking it a bit slower.
6. Flying directly in the sun, over terrain and into an unfamiliar airport is not a blast. Maybe a slightly earlier or later departure would be advisable next time.
7. I'm going to really have to work hard at staying ahead of the ballgame if I'm going to get though my instrument rating.
 
Curious - why did you go over the mountains east of ABQ rather than come in further to the west (pretty much from the north)?
 
murphey said:
Curious - why did you go over the mountains east of ABQ rather than come in further to the west (pretty much from the north)?
Click to expand...

From my preflight planning, I knew that 30-12 is the preferred runway for GA. Cutter is just off of 30 at charlie. Also the TAF / ATIS had winds directly in line with runway 30. I came in directly off of V12, so the less than 8000 foot "mountains" that I crossed weren't a big deal (no pun intended.) It just made sense to go with the easy, straight in approach from the East.

I suppose I could have taken FTI V263 SAF V611 direct ABQ as well, but it seemed to be a lot of extra, and unnecessary, maneuvering.

The other option would be to go south via La Veta pass, but IIRC club requires a mountain checkout for terrain above 8500, so that route wasn't an option (and I need the XC hours for my instrument rating, anyway...)
 
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Not that far north....Pretty much the same route as you, I just pick up V190 by RENCO then at DULKE then head a bit north to avoid the hills. Specially in the winter, don't feel like landing in the parking lot on the east side of the Sandia ski area in case something goes wrong. But you were practicing for IFR routing, right?
 
GauzeGuy said:
The other option would be to go south via La Veta pass, but IIRC club requires a mountain checkout for terrain above 8500, so that route wasn't an option (and I need the XC hours for my instrument rating, anyway...)
Click to expand...

I'd recommend the mountain checkout. It makes you both a better and safer pilot while opening up the most spectacular flying there is to you.
 
murphey said:
Not that far north....Pretty much the same route as you, I just pick up V190 by RENCO then at DULKE then head a bit north to avoid the hills. Specially in the winter, don't feel like landing in the parking lot on the east side of the Sandia ski area in case something goes wrong. But you were practicing for IFR routing, right?
Click to expand...

Not intentionally practicing IFR routing per se, though the route would have been good had I filed /A for this trip. MEA's wouldn't have been too horrible.

Your route looks good as well, looks to be an easy way to wind up on a left base for 12...
 
Mtns2Skies said:
I'd recommend the mountain checkout. It makes you both a better and safer pilot while opening up the most spectacular flying there is to you.
Click to expand...

It's on the to-do list. When I started working on the instrument rating, I realized that I need to focus on one thing at a time. After that is done, then comes the mountain checkout, complex, high performance, maybe a glider add-on...

Aviation. Not just a hobby and a means of transportation... It's an addiction. :D
 
GauzeGuy said:
From my preflight planning, I knew that 30-12 is the preferred runway for GA. Cutter is just off of 30 at charlie. Also the TAF / ATIS had winds directly in line with runway 30. I came in directly off of V12, so the less than 8000 foot "mountains" that I crossed weren't a big deal (no pun intended.) It just made sense to go with the easy, straight in approach from the East.

I suppose I could have taken FTI V263 SAF V611 direct ABQ as well, but it seemed to be a lot of extra, and unnecessary, maneuvering.

The other option would be to go south via La Veta pass, but IIRC club requires a mountain checkout for terrain above 8500, so that route wasn't an option (and I need the XC hours for my instrument rating, anyway...)
Click to expand...

It's not an issue of a mountain checkout this time of year. As a rule, passes out here in the Rockies aren't the best option until late March or April. Wind. Storms. And the AWOS aren't always working. Right now LaVeta, Monarch and Wilkerson are all broken and can't be repaired until spring. So the long way around is the only safe option.
 
P.S. Those AWOS stations are State funded and they might be too poor to fix them in the Spring. Heh. Hard to say.
 
Really interesting 'scouting report' for a trip I look forward to making. Thanks for sharing your experiences.
 
BTW, if you noticed the truck-stop parking lot on I-40 beneath you?
Trucks are STILL there in idle mode. Hold up is in Texas.

(Best place I've found for replacement batteries is Amazon -- LS14250 batteries for $3.76 each). Just sayin
 
I've got a turbo and fly GPS direct from KAPA-KABQ several times a year if conditions are VFR. Always use flight following at 16,500'. It's a spectacular flight... first you pass just just west of Pikes Peak, then you cross the Sangre de Cristo mountains and overfly the Great Sand Dunes, then pass directly over Los Alamos National Labs before beginning the descent into KABQ. You can see my YouTube video of most of this flight here. I also posted a similar flight with scenery annotations here.

Interesting that ABQ tower has never assigned me runway 30... it's been runway 3 every time, and then runway 8 every time for my departure.

Keep flying and keep learning! Thanks for sharing the story of your trip.
 
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Thank you for this post. I recently received my ppl and this is going to be my first flight out of the state! I am trying to get XC hours towards my Instrument rating.
 
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