September 2008 Archives
I haven't mentioned my last few flights... two flights to Paris , TX and a local flight around dallas. The flights to Paris were pretty much uneventful, other than the happenings on the ground. The night flight yesterday around dallas was fantastic. Here's how they went.
First, a week ago from last Sunday, I flew with my friend to take his kids back to their mom near Paris, TX. The kids had never been on any kind of plane and they had a blast. We did have a bit of a problem finding his wife's house, but once we figured out where we were, we found the house pretty quickly.
One thing about my friend's ex-wife.... she is a bitter, bitter woman. Now she's even more of a country hick than before now that she lives out in the sticks. My complaint about her -- and this is a complaint that my wife shares with me dating back years -- is that she sets up these expectations of others without checking to see if those expectations are realistic or agreed to. If you don't meet said expectations, she has a fit. And when she wants things to go a certain way, she doesn't take others into consideration.
So, we're running late and my friend had told his wife that he would get his kids fed before dropping them off. Because of the timing of the flight and the lack of civilization between the airport in Paris and my friend's ex-wife's home, we couldn't really stop. We were lost, Google maps didn't help... nor did the paper map we had in the courtesy car from the FBO. It was quite annoying... so we're trying to find recognizable landmarks and back track when his phone rings... after some complaining about being late, not feeding the kids, etc etc... we hung up and found our way. My friend delivers the kids while his ex-wife berates him some more and we head back for an uneventful trip back.
One thing happened though... I left my iPhone in the courtesy car in Paris at the airport. I called them the next morning and sure enough, they had it and said they would hold onto it for me. So, I took the plane back on Monday and picked up my phone... safe and sound.
Last night I decided to fly with another friend (who happens to be a student pilot) to maintain my night currency. He came along because flyin's fun and because he hasn't done his night time training and wanted to see what he was in for. Even though he couldn't log any time I think he got quite a bit out of it. We took off from mckinney and tuned in the ATIS at Addison to get the weather info, then contacted regional approach. They gave us a squawk and instructions to head toward addison and then handed us off to the tower who gave us instructions on the direction of approach (we were to enter left base for runway 15 and descend at our discretion). We did so, touched down once we found the runway (which was a bit trickier for me than the other times I've been there) and taxied back to tell them we wanted to transition class bravo airspace enroute to dallas-executive airport.
We were told by ground, squawk 4673, after takeoff, turn right heading 180, climb and maintain at or below 2000 feet, expect to contact love tower at 123.7 for further instructions after handoff by addison tower. After my readback was confirmed, i switched over to addison tower to let them know we were ready to go, they handed back to ground to give me some additional info, which turned out to be nothing, ground handed back to the tower who finally released us. We took off, climbed out and turned to 180 when we heard the tower say, "Cessna 3-november-bravo, you're cleared into class bravo contact love tower at 123.7, have a good evening."
When I switched over to love tower, before I got a chance to contact them to report in, I heard, "cessna 3-november-bravo, are you with me yet?"
To which I replied, "Love tower, cessna 3-november-bravo has you."
Followed by, "Cessna 3-november-bravo, maintain 2000 feet, overfly runway 18-36, maintain heading until cleared direct to dallas-executive." I repeated the instructions and we had an outstanding view of dallas right in front of us.
As we flew over the runway, we watched a Southwest Airlines 737 landing to our right, we was pretty impressive. Once we passed love, the tower called and said, "cessna 3-november-bravo, proceed direct to dallas-executive." I started looking for the dallas-executive beacon and waiting for the next instruction, which came after I inquired, "3-november-bravo, you are clear of class bravo airspace, radar services terminated, squawk vfr, frequency change approved." I set my transponder back to 1200, tuned in the Dallas-Exec ATIS only to find out the tower was closed. So, we switched to common traffic advisory frequency and started making traffic calls to the airport in anticipation of our arrival. Since, no one else was around, we got in and out of there pretty fast.
We made our way over Lancaster airport and played with the pilot controlled lighting, then turned toward mesquite and noticed their runway lights were turned off, so I turned them on and made my calls to mesquite traffic on their frequency. We landed nicely, taxied back, and took off again, this time, to go back home to McKinney.
As we approached McKinney, I started lining up for runway 35 guessing that they would probably have us land to the north since the wind was calm and we were heading north anyway. Sure enough, when I called them they told us, proceed direct to runway 35. I lined us up to the runway center line and we were called back a couple of minutes later when we were still 6 miles out, and was cleared to land... I pulled in the carb heat, slowed us up when we were on a 2 mile final, and put it down nice and easy flaring as we passed over the numbers. We extended our landing rollout to taxiway C to that we could go directly across to parking from there.
Upon checking the mail today I got an interesting piece of correspondence.
That's right, I got me my permanent private pilot certificate. I feel much more official now. I actually have a certificate that doesn't expire within a few months (the temporary certificate expires within 120 days of issuance).
That is all for now.
It had been a couple of weeks since I last flew and I was getting that itch again... but this time, I didn't just want to fly, I wanted to have a purpose. So, Friday, with the day off, I decided to fly out to Paris, TX. It wasn't a useless trip. I was actually using this as a dry run because my friend mark and I plan on flying out there this coming weekend to return his kids to their mother after his weekend visitation. The flight was planned in short order, so I went to http://www.duats.com and logged in to get a weather briefing and file a flight plan and everything looked alright. So, we got to the airport checked out the plane and took off. As we climbed out and got approved for a frequency change, I called flight service to open the flight plan and they told me that there were some areas of instability that were not moving south and east of Dallas and recommended I called flight watch when I leave Paris to return to McKinney.
We landed and hung out in the FBO for about 15 minutes, chatted with the guy manning the FBO, and watched clouds get a little taller and decided to leave. On the climb out I called flight watch for a report and they told me there were pop up cells all around my area and to be on the lookout, but that McKinney was clear. As we flew, we saw two menacing clouds just to the south and to the north of my flight path. In both of these clouds there seemed to be a wall of condensation that extended down to the ground so we made sure we were clear of that and continued southwest. We actually flew in between both "walls" toward the clear skies just beyond this cloud. I told my Mark to keep his eyes open for any lightning and tell me immediately if he sees any. Just as we got past the bad stuff, mark saw a bolt of lightning far away to the North. Since we were past it already and past any menacing clouds I didn't worry about it. That's not to say I wasn't more than a little nervous. Let's put it this way, I was flying a plane that has a brand new engine in it. The break-in instructions call for the pilot to fly at 75% cruise... let's just say that I was flying at a little bit more than 75% power on my way through this area of the sky.
Anyway, we made it back to McKinney in short time and landed with the wind 110 at 8 knots (a nice little crosswind) and landed without any problems.
The next day, my wife and I decided to go on a $100 hamburger run to the Blue Pig BBQ up in Ardmore, OK. The weather was much better, although there was a thick haze layer that cut visibility to less than 10 miles. We had to wait longer than usual to take off, as there were several planes in line to leave McKinney and still more landing. So when we actually left, we were about 20 minutes late taking off. Interestingly, one of the other club planes, 68K, a Cessna 150 left McKinney about 3 planes before us.We got into the air and started toward Ardmore and I assigned the wife the task of tracking our checkpoints and making note of the times. She did so while reading a magazine. I guess I should take that as a sign that she trust my ability to control the airplane. When we got close, I figured out that Ardmore tower doesn't have any RADAR. THey asked us for position reports at 5 miles and then again when we were abeam of the tower. Anyway, we arrived in Ardmore and were met on the ramp by a very nice elderly gentleman who threw down a pair of wheel chocks and asked if we needed fuel. We said no thanks and went into the restaurant. I had a bacon cheeseburger and the wife had a brisket sandwich... both were excellent... while there we ran into the couple that took off from McKinney in 68K and said hello. They left before us, but we got there first, as our plane is a little bit faster.
It was a short lunch, but a good one, and after we finished we got back into the plane and started back to McKinney. Once again, having to announce my position at 5 miles out on departure. On the flight back, the air was a little choppier and the skies a little cloudier on the way back, but nothing to be concerned about. We were back a little more quickly than we left, all in all a fun time was had.
Updated Pilot Log
