Dual Cross-Country #1

On Thursday, 7 October, I flew my first cross-country flight from Manassas (HEF) to Charlottesville (CHO) with my CFI.  The FAA requires 3 hours of cross country time--flights of at least 50 nautical miles out and then back--with an instructor for the Private Pilot certificate.  I will make this trip again, solo, hopefully in the next week or so.  

Having spent two hours Wednesday morning doing the flight planning with my instructor, I had everything ready to go except all of the calculations that are dependent on the current weather (winds aloft, density altitude).  I am not yet very proficient with the E6B, a circular slide rule used to compute wind correction, fuel burn, and distance-speed-time problems, so it took a while to finish the flight plan.  I'll get plenty of practice with it over the next few weeks, though.  I tried using an E6B application for my Android phone, but it crashed several times during my attempt, thus proving that the slide rule is more reliable. Seriously, why would a glorified calculator application crash?  Not a lot going on there.  


The weather was great, if a little bumpy.  We flew the outbound leg using pilotage and dead reckoning. The route took us to Orange County Airport (OMH), over Barboursville, and finally into Charlottesville.  We were able to get flight following from Potomac Approach, and I had my first interaction with Flight Service en-route to open my search-and-rescue flight plan.  My landing on runway 21 at Charlottesville was one of the best so far, and my computed flight time was accurate to 1-2 minutes.

We taxied to Landmark Aviation, parked, and had 7 gallons of 100LL AvGas put into the airplane to avoid paying a landing/ramp fee.  There is an airline on the field and plenty of business jets. We took off shortly after I paid the fuel bill. A Dash 8 landed while we were waiting for takeoff clearance.   We watched where it touched down and then made the takeoff rotation past that point to avoid any wake turbulence.

We departed on the downwind leg and turned for the WITTO intersection.  The return route  was intended to be flown with the hood on, had I remembered it, as it required tracking a radial all the way back to the Casanova VOR. 

This was a fun trip. While I was busy looking for checkpoints and flying the airplane (no autopilot or GPS on board), I enjoyed having a few moments to look at the scenery.  It was great to actually go someplace other than the practice area.

Night Flying

On Friday, 1 October, I flew at night for the first time.

A cold front behind the remnants of the tropical storm had passed through during the day, and there were surface gusts over 30 knots.  My CFI called me on the way out and asked my opinion on the weather.  At the time, the surface winds were still gusting over 20 knots--stronger winds than I had experience flying in.  The Dulles terminal forecast for 0000 Zulu and later showed the winds abating, so I decided to go for it.  When I got to the FBO, I discovered that I was the first student to be dispatched for the day, due to the weather.  In my standard briefing, I noticed an AIRMET for moderate turbulence below 10,000 ft covering our area, but it was scheduled to expire mid-flight.  While the surface winds were dying down, the winds aloft were still brisk (31 knots at 3000 feet).

The sensation of flying at night was wild.  Pilotage was difficult, especially picking out HEF's beacon with all the city lights behind it.  That will take practice.

I flew the maneuvers (steep turns, stalls) very sloppily.  I oscillated between flying them using external references and instruments.  Next time, I will transition directly to instruments when doing these at night.

We went to Warrenton (KHWY) and practiced takeoffs and landings.  The dispatcher at the flight school warned me that the first landing will be a hard one due to the change in depth perception--and she was right.  I flew the first approach normally to full 30 degree flaps, but with the 30 knot headwind, I was dragging the airplane in.   I held 10 degrees flaps for all the remaining landings, which was the first time I had done reduced flap landings.  The flare was a little different, but the landings weren't terrible.

I was surprised how much the headwind changed the approach angle and how much power was required to correct the sink rate.  On the downwind turn, I noticed the airplane accelerate quickly relative to the ground due to the nearly direct tailwind.  On the return leg back to HEF (about 060 ground track), I could see the city lights sliding by horizontally at a good clip.  I added a few degrees left for wind correction and slid right into the spot for a base entry.  A Baron was landing ahead of us, and I didn't spot him until he finally overtook us and started to turn final.  

Flight time this lesson: 1.7 hrs dual, 1.7 hrs night
Total time to date: 19.6 hrs dual, 3.5 hrs PIC, 1.7 hrs night (8 TO/LND)

No Night Flying Tonight

I was hoping to get my first taste of night flying this evening.  We were planning to stay in the traffic pattern where I would attempt to bang out at least 8 of the 10 night takeoffs/landings required by the FAA in 14 CFR §61.109(a)(2)(ii) to avoid any night restrictions on my pilot certificate.  Though the forecast was marginal with rain, all I needed was an hour and a half of VFR legal weather.

Earlier, the Dulles TAF predicted a broken ceiling of about 5000 feet--good enough to fly the pattern with some margin--but that was later revised to 1800 feet broken.  My CFI called me a little before 5pm and mentioned that that the ceiling could drop below 1000 feet in short order.  Here we are, about an hour and a half after official sunset and the latest observations bear that out:

KHEF 300035Z AUTO 00000KT 10SM OVC010 16/15 A2992 RMK AO1
KHWY 300021Z AUTO 02004KT 7SM OVC010 16/15 A2990 RMK AO2
KCJR 300020Z AUTO 35003KT 5SM -RA OVC012 16/14 A2992 RMK AO2
KRMN 300020Z AUTO 00000KT 4SM RA OVC006 17/17 A2995 RMK AO2
 
For those who don't speak METAR, that is an overcast cloud layer at 1000 feet above the ground at Manassas.  Twenty minutes ago, it was at 1500 feet.  The ceiling at airports in the vicinity are about the same or worse.  At best, I would have had to cut this flight short, because I could not fly at the traffic pattern altitude of 1000 feet above ground (AGL) while keeping a minimum of 500 feet below the clouds.    


I watched the weather all day today.  Flying is compelling me to observe, appreciate, and respect the weather. I am half way through Weather Flying by Robert Buck. Highly recommended.