More Fun With The Weather

I looked at my calendar and it came as a shock that I hadn't taken the controls of an aircraft in two whole weeks. No wonder I was drooling as I looked from my first row seat of the Airbus A320 into the open cockpit door. I pulled out my blackberry and reserved a plane for the next day.

I was awakened by the sound of rain beating on my roof Saturday morning. Checking the forecast, conditions did not look good for the day. Mostly IFR conditions throughout the day but with fairly calm winds at the surface. So with my coffee in my hand, I got a briefing for an 11am departure flying over to Cecil Field. The ceiling at Cecil was showing much better than Craig - Overcast at 900 feet while Craig was overcast at 400. Visibility was reported at 3 miles, but it was diminishing with light rain and mist. These are the METAR strips for the time that I was up yesterday:
KCRG 261653Z 00000KT 2 1/2SM BR OVC004 09/08 A3025 RMK AO2 RAB02E50 SLP242 P0000 T00940083 $
KCRG 261641Z 15006KT 1 1/2SM -RA BR OVC004 09/08 A3024 RMK AO2 RAB02 P0000 $
KCRG 261618Z 14007KT 2SM -RA BR OVC004 08/07 A3027 RMK AO2 RAB02 PRESFR P0000 $
KCRG 261553Z 00000KT 3SM BR OVC004 08/07 A3032 RMK AO2 RAE38 PRESFR SLP267 P0001 T00780072 $

KVQQ 261750Z VRB03KT 2 1/2SM BR BKN004 OVC010 A3022
KVQQ 261650Z VRB04KT 2 1/2SM BR BKN005 OVC010 A3026
KVQQ 261550Z 00000KT 2SM BR OVC009 A3034

The interesting thing to note is that the barometer was dropping pretty rapidly during this time period and that doesn't spell good weather.

Arriving at the airport I learned that a new VFR pilot had taken the plane that I reserved to St. Simons Island the night before and due to obvious reasons, he could not make it back. I think the chief instructor needs to take another look at this fellow's credentials. The weather on Friday Night was exactly as forecast, so there was no reason for him to expect that he could make it back VFR.

Fortunately, a new Skyhawk was on the line - fueled and ready for me. With the weather conditions looking miserable, I verified if the plane was reserved for later just in case I needed to land at an alternate. Sure enough, it was reserved at 2, but I expected to return by 1, so no problem.

I called a briefer and entered a new flight plan since my tail number had changed and then preflighted the plane. Since I hadn't flown it several weeks, I was very careful about the preflight - didn't want to miss anything.

Taxi, runup and departure were uneventful and I was cleared to depart on runway 5 and instructed to turn to 280 on climbout. The plane accelerated down the runway and I was airborne. The cold air's effects on the engine's performance and the wing's lift were quite noticeable as I was climbing more than 1000 feet per minute with full fuel. In no time I was in the clouds. I made my turn to 280 and was handed off to JAX Approach.

Approach assigned me 4000 feet as my final altitude. I leveled off and set the autopilot to follow the heading bug. I then loaded the approach into the GPS and clipped the approach plate to my yoke. I read the plate and then tuned the ATIS for Cecil.

I was flying between layers of clouds above and below me. ATC turned me to 190 for the downwind leg for the ILS 36-R approach to Cecil. Just prior to turning me for the base leg, the controller dropped me to 2000 feet and I found myself in the clouds once again. ATC turned me to 270 followed shortly by a turn to 320 and an approach clearance, "November- 2-4-6-niner-uniform, fly heading 320, maintain 2000 until established, cleared for the ILS 36-right approach to Cecil." I repeated the clearance as I adjusted my course and activated the vector-to-final. On the downwind, I had identified the localizer at Cecil, and the green bar and the diamond were showing on my G1000 PFD. ATC handed me off to the tower who I contacted and I was given clearance for the option on 36R. I hit the APR button on the autopilot and it subsequently lined me up perfectly with the localizer. Prior to reaching the fix, I slowed my speed to 95 knots. As the glideslope neared my current altitude, I dropped the first notch of flaps and waited as the autopilot stabilized the aircraft with the warning, "Trim In Motion". I was maintaining a descent of about 450 fpm when I disconnected the autopilot so I could hand fly the rest of the approach.

I was in solid IMC when the tower controller asked me to give him a base report once I broke through and I said that I would.

The ground finally appeared when I passed through 400 feet. The runway was dead ahead. Since I had the option, I touched the wheels to the runway and then took off all over again.

My climbout instructions were fore 270 and 2000 feet on the same ATC frequency. My touch and go had used less than a quarter of the very long runway (12,500 feet). The tower handed me back to ATC and I was quickly turned to 190 again for a left downwind for the same approach.

I was flying at on ly 90 knots when I heard ATC talking to a Seminole advising them that he might have to turn them for spacing. Recognizing that I might be the cause of the potential delay, I called ATC and offered to fly faster. ATC thanked me for that and I pushed the throttle for more speed. I accelerated to 125 knots IAS and set up the plane for the next approach.

I maintained my speed until 1 mile from the FAF receiving turning instructions from ATC as I lined up for the next approach. ATC asked my intentions and I said following this approach, I would return to Craig for a full stop. He ammended my climbout instructions to 360 and 3000.

I wanted to practice an emergency procedure - nothing in the book, though. Since I carry a spare radio that can tune and indicate the localizer, I decided to use this for navigation simulating an emergency where I lost the nav radios. This time, I hand flew the entire approach. I found myself wandering across the beam a bit more than usual and the handheld radio had a bit more variability than the regular equipment. I emerged from the clouds at 400 feet and about 20 feet from the center line pointed about 10 degrees to the right of the center. But the fact is that I was pretty close to being lined up and had no difficulty reaching the runway.

Following this, I headed back to Craig where I flew the ILS 32 approach. The weather had grown worse - lower ceilings and less visibility. The ceiling was reported at 400 feet and that is lower than every approach requires except for the ILS. I did the usual - ATIS, Radios, Approach Plate, GPS, etc. I entered clouds at about 2800 feet and was solidly in IMC as I was handed off to the tower. I made my call and was told that I could expect to emerge at 300 feet...wow - that's damn close to minimums - 241'. A circling approach would not be possible. Fortunately the wind was light so I should have no trouble landing on 32.

I popped out of the clouds at 300 feet as expected, but I couldn't see the far end of the runway. Visibility was only about 1.5 miles, if that.

The runway was precisely where it was supposed to be as I emerged from the clouds.

Flying in such poor conditions and being able to make three successful landings without crashing was a very satisfying experience.

1.4 hours, 3 TO, 3 Landings, 3 Instrument Approaches, 0.9 hours in actual IMC.

Inexperienced? Maybe...but a damned fool? Absolutely not.

A while back I wrote an entry where I described getting a clearance for an IFR departure from a non-towered airport and explained that I was given a very short window to take off. I had called Tampa Departure Control - the controlling agency for the clearance. The airport that I was departing is beneath the Class-B airspace for Tampa International and is fairly close to the approach patterns for this busy airport. An anonymous writer was harshly critical of my comments and said that my acceptance of a 6 minute clearance was indicative of my inexperience. The anonymous pilot explained that he has been a corporate pilot for 20 years and frequently gets clearances for 20 minutes for zero-zero departures from non-towered airports. Bully for him.

First, I'm flying a Skyhawk and will not depart an airport that I cannot immediately return to should I have a problem on departure, therefore a zero-zero for me translates to zero airspeed, zero RPM. Second, his experience may tell him to demand longer clearances, but I won't be flying with him if he opts to depart in such conditions. He won't get a 20 minute clearance window departing from the Tampa North Aeropark in his corporate jet...oh, yeah, that big lump of aluminum can't land or take off from there anyway.

Third, I never claimed to be a 20 year corporate pilot. However, I have more experience than many of the instructors who are teaching new pilots...and most of my instrument experience is in IMC, not under the hood. Still, I recognize that I do not have the experience of many pilots and I am constantly learning.

It is extremely unlikely that Tampa Departure would give anyone a 20 minute window that would cause them to block a section of busy class B airspace. Perhaps they do things differently in the Great Lakes.

So, if anyone cares to comment on my entries - please feel free. Just keep the chest pounding to yourself. It serves no useful purpose. And if you've never flown from the place I described, try not to use irrelavent experience as the basis for criticism. Lastly, if you expect me to post critical notes that lack signatures, forget it. Anonymous notes will garner nothing more than my own response...if that.

Christmas Night IFR

Before heading to my sister's house for Christmas dinner, I checked the forecast for the flight home that I was planning to make later that evening. The weather along the route provided no obstacles, but the ceiling at Craig was forecast to drop from its current 1200 feet overcast to 400 feet overcast with layers later that night. 400 feet is just a little more than the minimum 241 feet for the ILS approach and was below minimums for all of the non-precision approaches. I wasn't worried, but this would be as big a challenge as the prior day's approach to Tampa North with no instrument approaches and 1,600 foot ceilings.

After a wonderful meal and lots of time with my neices and nephews, I called 1-800-WX-BRIEF and got a standard briefing for the flight home. The weather in the Tampa area had cleared somewhat from the morning's broken skies and it now appeared that I could depart VFR and pick up my clearance once airborne. The alternative was to try to raise ATC on the ground or call the Lockheed-Martin 800 number for clearance. This could result in having to wait on the ground for a while until ATC had cleared the sky around me and with a busy Tampa International nearby, the big jets always get priority.

Arriving at the airport, we had calm winds and few clouds. I completed my preflight and set the altimeter to the airport elevation of 68 feet. I set the local CTAF on the radio and tuned 119.9 in the standby frequency for Tampa Approach. I then entered my route in the GPS: X39 direct OCF direct Craig. Runup showed no problems, so I announced my intentions on the CTAF and departed on runway 32 just as the sun was setting.

Climbing through 1000 feet, I completed the climb checklist, announced a departure to the north and turned the plane direct to Ocala. Then switching the radio to the ATC frequency, I listened for traffic and called, "Tampa Approach, Skyhawk 7-2-1 Victor Alpha".

The controller instructed an airliner to slow to 170, waited for his response, then acknowledged me by saying, "Skyhawk 7-2-1 Victor Alpha, Tampa Approach".

I requested my instrument clearance, "Approach, 1-Victor Alpha has just departed Xray three niner. IFR on file for Charlie Romeo Golf. I'd like to pick up my clearance, please."

The controller gave me a squawk code for the transponder which I acknowledged and entered into the device.

A minute later, the controller radioed, "November 1-Victor-Alpha, radar contact three miles north of the Tampa North Aeropark. Cleared to Craig as filed, climb to 6000 feet." I repeated the clearance and altitude then set 6000 as the warning in the autopilot and as the bug on the altimeter.

I leveled off at 6000 feet and before I reached Ocala, the controller cleared me direct to Craig.

Just past Ocala, I could see a cloud layer building ahead of us. It looked like a thin layer that covered a wide area ahead. Eventually, the horizon disappeared and I was completely on instruments.

There weren't many aircraft flying this evening so the radio was quiet except for the occasional frequency change to accommodate handoffs to different controllers.

I could see the lights of towns and cities below causing bright spots in the cloud layer, but the ground was otherwise completely obscured.

I listened to the ATIS for Craig and learned that CRG was landing on runway 32 and was IFR with a ceiling of 009 broken. I pulled up the plate for the ILS 32 approach, briefed it, loaded it into the GPS and followed ATC's instructions for descent to 2000 feet into the clouds.

I slowed the plane to 90 knots for the approach and was vectored by ATC to the final course.

The controller cleared me for the ILS 32 approach which I repeated. I activated the vector-to-final in the GPS and set up the auto pilot to line me up which it did wonderfully. Once established inbound, ATC handed me off to the tower.

I called, "Craig Tower, Skyhawk 7-2-1- Victor Alpha, 4.9 miles from runway 32 on the ILS with whiskey, full stop. The tower immediately cleared me to land and I continued to hand fly the approach. We popped out of the clouds at 800 feet with the approach lighting directly ahead of us. I greased the landing - a very smooth landing especially considering it was at night.

I made the turnoff and was advised by the tower to taxi to the ramp and monitor ground on point-8. I thanked the tower and then advised him that the ceiling was now down to 800 feet.

Flying in IMC is a pleasure for me. I get a great sense of satisfaction from flying an approach through the clouds and navigating directly to the runway. Popping out of the clouds to see the runway right where I expect it makes me just a bit proud.

1.6 hours of Night cross-country with 0.7 in actual IMC and one instrument approach...a good day of flying by any measure!

Down through the clouds - without an instrument approach

My trip from Craig Airport (KCRG) to the Tampa North Aeropark (X39) on Christmas Eve, started with a hitch and got more complicated as the flight neared completion. The aircraft was far from ready when I arrived at the airport. It had been flown two days earlier for 3.5 hours and was left without refueling. When I arrived at the airport, only a skeleton crew was available and they were focused on repairing both of the air charter jets that were down for unscheduled maintenance.

The engine gave me fits trying to start, which is surprising for a fuel injected aircraft. Finally, I got it started and taxied over to the fuel depot for refueling. The end result was a departure that was about 40 minutes behind schedule.

The weather at Craig was clear with few clouds. But prior to departure, I checked the METARs for Brooksville, Vandenburg and Tampa International to get some idea what the weather was like at Tampa North. Nothing looked promising. Brooksville was reporting 900 feet and overcast, Tampa was 1400 and Vandenburg was about the same. The past few hours of METARs showed increases in the ceiling and that was promising and the TAFs suggested there would be some clearing later in the day, so I expected that we'd eventually be able to land.

I picked up my IFR clearance and ran through the runup. The winds favored runway 32 for departure and I picked up my clearance and a departure heading of 280. The tower handed me off to JAX approach who cleared me to 5000 feet and cleared me direct to OCF once I had passed 2000 feet.

Headwinds slowed our progress somewhat, but it wasn't too bad. About 20 minutes into the flight, I came upon a solid white layer of clouds below me that reached up to envelope the aircraft from time to time. Using the NEXRAD capabilities of the G1000, I kept tabs on the nearby airports as I flew along. The situation had not improved much.

Closer to the destination, the clouds near our altitude thinned out only to reveal a solid layer further below. South of Ocala, ATC dropped me down to 2000 feet and that put me in and out of clouds. Tampa Approach asked me for my flight conditions and I had to tell him that I was in and out of IMC.

ATC then said, "November one-victor-alpha, cleared direct Xray-three-niner, if you aren't already direct". A few minutes later, I received clearance to descend to 1600, then minimum altitude that the controller could give me. Unfortunately, I was still in the clouds and there was no instrument approach into this airport.

The controller asked me for the conditions, and this time I told him that I was getting glimpses of the ground, but I had zero forward visibility. He asked me what I would like to do if I can't see the airport when I arrive and I replied, "I'll divert to Crystal River, Charlie-Golf-Charlie". There is a single, non-precision approach to Crystal River, but more importantly, that's just a few miles from my Dad's house and if he handn't already left for my sister's house, I could catch a ride with him.

A few minutes later, the controller asked me if he could make a suggestion. I told him that I would love to hear any suggestion that he might have. His idea he had really surprised me - it was a great idea and definitely not something that was ever taught in flight training.

The controller suggested that I fly the ILS to Vandenburg, but once I was safely below the cloud layer, I could go missed, cancel IFR and fly VFR back to Tampa North. He could not legally give me an altitude below 1600 feet on and IFR plan, and I couldn't cancel IFR when I was still in the clouds, so the key was to find a legal way to get below the clouds. With the ceiling at 1600 feet and 1600 feet being the minimum altitude, we had a challenge that the controller found a very creative way of overcoming.

I could legally decend below the clouds on the Vandenburg approach and since the ceiling was at 1600 feet, I could legally fly at 1100 feet - still 500 feet below the clouds and over 1000 feet above obstacles on the ground.

As I flew along, I reduced speed to 85 knots to give myself lots of time to spot the airport. ATC called me to say that they were showing me at 1700 feet - but my altimeter showed 1640. I dropped down to 1560 to take advantage of the apparent fudge factor. But, the greatest advantage I had was the GPS.

The GPS took me directly over the airport and just as I passed the airport, ATC told me that I was passing it and asked me what I wanted to do. I had just spotted the airport's new hangers as I flew over, so I immediately told ATC that I had the airport in sight, was dropping lower and canceled IFR.

I dropped the 500 feet to pattern altitude very quickly made a quick pass to see if I could spot a wind sock, then lined up for the downwind for 32. I never spotted the sock, but the winds at Brooksville would have favored runway 32, so I assumed that this was the case. Crossing the fence, my engine was pulled to idle, but there was about an 8 to 10 knot tailwind, so I sailed along wasting runway as I finally greased the landing.

This was a unique flight in that I learned a new trick from the air traffic controller. The flight took about 1.6 hours with .6 of that in solid and challenging IMC...all cross country.

HARD IFR!

It is now 1:35pm and I still have not seen the sun today.

Craig field was reporting a ceiling of 600 feet overcast with mist. Visibility was ranging from 1 3/4 miles to 2 1/2 miles. The minimums for the ILS32-CRG are 241 feet MSL. So a 600 foot ceiling would make for some fun flying.

I filed IFR for CRG-VQQ-CRG with PLA in the notes section (Practice Low Approaches). After getting my clearance and performing a quick runup, I pulled up to runway 5 and announced that I was ready to go. After about 60 seconds, the tower cleared me and told me to make a left turn to 280.

Just as the METAR indicated, I entered clouds at 600 feet and executed my climbing left turn to 2000 feet. The tower handed me off to Jax Approach who gave me 3000 feet as my final altitude and asked for my intentions. I asked for the ILS 36 Right at VQQ and was vectored to the southwest. Level at 3000 feet, I tuned the ATIS for Cecil on my second radio. Once I had it I told Jax Approach that I had information Sierra.

The winds at 2000 and 3000 feet were varying between 29 and 36 knots from 070 according to my GPS. At the surface they shifted to 020. At no time did I break out of the clouds.

I loaded the approach on the GPS and clipped the plate to the yoke. Reading through it I noted the minimum altitudes, headings, etc.

Shortly, ATC dropped me to 2000 feet and vectored my base leg.

I turned off the autopilot and hand flew the approach. The winds required wind correction angles of as much as 25 degrees as I lined up on the localizer. I flew the plane lower and lower...still deep in the clouds. Finally, the ground began to appear beneath me...and then later ahead of me. At about 500 feet, I could see the rabbit directly ahead of me followed shortly by the rest of the runway environment. I leveled off about 50 feet above the runway, pushed full power, retracted flaps, then pitched nose up for my climb out.

I announced to the tower that I was executing my missed approach and turned the plane to 270 as instructed. Almost immediately I was in the clouds again.

Once the tower handed me back to JAX, I requested the VOR9R approach and was told to continue on 270 at 2000 feet. I loaded the approach in the GPS, tuned NAV1 to the VQQ VOR and read over the approach plate that I had clipped to the yoke.

In this case, the approach vector is 109 degrees for a runway that is 90 degrees. At some point, the controller asked how this approach would terminate and I told him perhaps a bit too verbosely that on the last approach I broke out at 600 feet, and that the minimums for this approach were 640 feet, so I expected to have to go missed.

I was cleared for the approach and lined up on the VOR with help from the GPS. Heading steadily towards the airport I descended to just above the MDA of 640 feet. I was in and out of clouds bouncing along for 4 miles at this altitude. I held the plane steady as I flew peering out of the window to spot the runway. The tower asked me to tell him when I could see the runway...but I didn't see it yet. Just then, the controller told me to advise when going missed - a silly instruction since that is the normal procedure. As soon as he called me, I spotted the runway below me. I could drop right down to the runway. I then executed the missed and headed back to the west...and immediately found myself back in the clouds.

ATC asked my intentions this time and I asked for the ILS 32 at Craig.

The controller turned me to a heading of 105 (first time I didn't have an even heading like 100 or 110). I leveled off at 3000 feet and headed 105. Because the wind was so stiff in my face - 36 knots, I pushed the power to 2600 RPM and fought the wind a bit. Still in the clouds, I pressed on towards CRG and loaded the approach. I checked the ATIS, but it was still Quebec.

Several minutes later, I heard ATC tell another aircraft that Romeo would be current soon at CRG, so I tuned COM2 to the ATIS and got the latest weather. The barometer had dropped to 30.14, and the wind was stronger with gusts, but the ceiling was still 600 feet.

As I approached the ADERR fix, I could see another aircraft approaching from my right. ATC called the traffic for me and said that he was bringing me in behind a Cirrus what was twice as fast as me - a bit of an exaggeration, but fine.

I told the controller that I had the Cirrus on my scope showing 900 feet above my altitude to my right, but I was in IMC and could not see it.

He held the Cirrus at 3000 feet and brought him onto the ILS above me. I slowed the plane down considerably to ensure adequate distance between us.

It looked like I was going to overshoot the localizer when ATC turned me to a heading of 300 to intercept. I executed the turn, but because of the wind, I never crossed the localizer and would not have intercepted it on that heading, so I made my own adjustments. Again I was having to keep about 25 degrees of wind correction to stay lined up. The wind on the ground favored runway 5 - the only one without an instrument approach. Consequently, the instructions were to fly 32 with a circle to 5.

ATC advised that it appeared that I was lined up with the localizer (I was) and cleared me for the approach. I repeated the clearance and added that the GPS was showing winds around 30 knots from 070 and he thanked me for the info.

I continued the approach down to 500 feet, breaking out of the clouds at 600 feet. There was the runway out the left side of the windshield - all that wind correction had me crabbing severely.

I made my circling turn and greased the landing - well before the first turnoff, as usual.

An OUTSTANDING FLIGHT! 1.4 hours total with nearly all of that in solid IFR. Three excellent approaches, too. There are few things that can build confidence like flying an approach to near minimums as a single pilot!

Jacksonville Craig Municipal Airport

A few weeks ago, someone who read this blog commented to me about the controllers at Craig saying that they were the meanest controllers. He also said he flew every day at Craig.

While I have encountered some less then congenial controllers here and at other airports, I think for the most part, the controllers at Craig are professional and very easy to deal with.

A few weeks ago, I was completing my FAA wings program and had been getting some recurring instrument training with an instructor from Sterling Flight Training. We had flown approaches at Cecil Field (VQQ) and were coming in on the ILS32 at CRG. The winds were from the east, so this would be a good time to practice crosswind technique. There were several planes in the pattern including helicopters doing flight training exercises and a banner tow pick-up getting ready to go. When I was handed off from Jax Approach to Craig Tower, I was on the ILS32 with a circle to 5. I asked the tower if I could continue and execute a touch and go on 32 to practice cross winds, then cancel IFR and remain in the pattern.

Considering that by the time I was on short final, there were five aircraft in the pattern for runway 5, I fully expected to be told to circle, but the controller was very kind and allowed me to land on 32. His hands were full with student pilots in both fixed and rotary aircraft, yet he was nice enough to accommodate me.

We made 7 landings that day since the Wings training requires a total of 3 hours of instruction. We practiced every imaginable type of landing - short, soft, no flap, partial flap. I managed to stop the plane inside of 500 feet on one landing and most were excellent landings.

In one instance, I had to side step the runway and go around because a student had landed way long and could not get off the runway in the first 2500 feet! In this case, we were told to make right traffic for that lap around the pattern.

In another instance, the banner tow plane cut across the pattern while climbing beneath me. I climbed to 1400 feet to give myself ample margin as he flew beneath me across my path. In this case, the controller didn't warn me about the banner tow, so I advised him that I had the tow plane in sight.

It was a great afternoon of flying with 2.0 hours total time with a good portion of that under simulated IMC. This gave me my FAA Wings qualifications in lieu of a BFR, so I'm good for two more years!

Response to Vegas & Grand Canyon West Question

The round trip time was 2.0 hours. It could be done much faster as the straight line distance is only around 75 nm. But, this was a sightseeing tour, so I followed the river once I got out of the Class B around McCarran. I also flew at 55% power so I could see everything.

As for the altitude, I flew at 9,500 feet based on the recommendation of the check ride instructor from WestAir Aviation. There are many sightseeing aircraft flying lower. Lots of helicopters and twin engine tour planes. Most of the tour planes are flown by low time commercial pilots - translation: 20 somethings who take too many chances. To provide a margin of safety, I flew well above them until I had to land at the Grand Canyon West airport.

When I departed, I flew west over the canyon on climbout up to 8,500 feet and got an excellent view of the features.

If you are going to rent a plane, plan on about 2 hours for a check out beforehand. I've done checkouts in .6 hours and this one took about 1.0 hours, but there is paperwork and preflight work that must be done.

The Perfect Landing

According to some pilots, a good landing is any one that you can walk away from. But, what is a perfect landing? Is it one that your passengers don't feel the transition from the air to the ground? Is it one that greases in smoothly with just slight chirps from each wheel? Or, maybe it's one that enables you to stop the aircraft in less distance than the distance shown in the POH. Most pilots recognize that the POH figures are based on optimal conditions and are produced by well-trained, highly experienced test pilots in very new aircraft. Meeting the POH figures for take-offs and landings can be quite a challenge. Meeting them in adverse conditions is almost unheard of.

Of course I wouldn't be writing this unless I had a particularly noteworthy experience. So, today, my destination was the North Palm Beach County airport (F45). I departed CRG just ahead of a nasty front after getting one last pre-flight briefing. The weather along the route was not terrible...a few bumps and quite a bit of cloud cover for the first hour or so. Conditions cleared south of Melbourne. I flew hot at maximum power for the altitude to overcome the 26 to 35 knot winds that were blowing from about a 60 degree angle off the right side. This knocked my TAS of 131 down to a groundspeed around 119 knots. Still, the trip only took 2.3 hours including runup.

There wasn't too much activity at the airport on arrival. Just an Arrow departing to the South who I heard on the Palm Beach Approach frequency, a helo coming in from the East, and a twin waiting to depart runway 13. He must have been waiting for instrument clearance since he held on the ground until long after I landed.

With so little traffic and wind from 180 at 12, I chose to land straight in on runway 13. I kept it hot on the approach until 4 miles out at which point I leveled off at 1000 feet MSL, reduced power to 1700 RPM and waited for the airspeed to drop below 105 knots. I dropped the first notch of flaps as I lined up on the VASI and began a steady descent. Flaps were deployed progressively and my speed dropped off steadily until I crossed the fence at 65 knots. I reduce power further and held the approach slope ultimately pulling power to idle when I knew I had the runway made. The wheels touched down smoothly right on the numbers and I immediately retracted the flaps, pulled hard on the elevators and began steady braking.

The plane was stopped in time to make the turnoff indicated in the attached photo - At the temperature and standard pressure, the POH calls for stopping in 585 feet. I managed to stop short of that! I was pretty proud of myself. This was one of the best landings I've made - nice and smooth, right on the numbers and as good or better than the POH!

As a pilot, I continually challenge myself to do things better. Landings are one area that I continue to work on. Who knows maybe I've got bush pilot in my future.

Total hours for the flight 2.3 with .4 actual instrument, all cross-country.

Vegas & Grand Canyon West

It makes no sense to me why Chicago is called the windy city with Las Vegas on the map. The wind here has been terrible. Yesterday, I had to cancel my flight because the wind was 20 knots with 30 knot gusts. Today, it wasn't nearly as bad. Still, it was bumpy and gusts made smooth landings a challenge.

For the past year, I've been flying amost nothing but glass panel G1000 aircraft. Since West Air Aviation requires a 4 hour ground school in order to fly their G1000, and their plane is much more expensive to rent than a plane with traditional instrumentation, I opted to fly the cheaper plane. My check ride went well. The instructor, John Romero, was very thorough putting me through power-on and power-off stalls, slow flight and three landings with varying degrees of flap deployment. After the flight, I took the plane to the Grand Canyon West (1G4) airport.

The flight over from North Las Vegas (KVGT) was great, but the destination was a bit of a disappointment. After I was clear of the Class B airspace, I was free to fly as I saw fit. On John's advice, I climbed to 9,500 to stay above the canyon tour traffic. I followed the river into Lake Mead, then up the Colorado into the Canyon from the west, then over to 1G4.

Looking at Google Earth, the airport appears to be situated right next to the Grand Canyon and is only 2 miles South of the glass walkway that the local native American tribe has built. My plan was to land a the airport, then hike up to the lookout point and take lots of neat pictures. The trouble with this plan is that the local tribe won't let you off of the airport parking lot unless you are in one of their tour buses. The tours start at $49.95. However, the glass walkway takes an additional $25. And to make matters worse, you can't take cameras or binoculars on the walkway.

According to the folks in Vegas, the landing fee was a steep $100. After I landed, I found out that if you take a tour, there is no fee. I told the guy at the desk that I wanted to hike around and take some photos, so he said there would be no landing fee. That was a relief. I had expected to hike to a place to grab some food, but there was no place nearby - and they wouldn't let me off the property anyway.

I managed to wander to the southern end of the runway and took some shots of the canyon as well as the runway, but a security guard caught up with me and told me I wasn't supposed to be walking where I was. He was nice and offered me a ride back, but I declined saying I'd walk back and take more pictures.

There are tons of helicopter and tour plane operations at this airport. There is no taxiway, so you have to use the runway to taxi. After I started my engine, I patiently waited on one private plane and one tour plane both of which had departed on runway 35. The wind was favoring 35 and judging by the wind sock, it was gusting to 15 knots from about 320 degrees. After the tour plane took off, I took runway 35, and that upset another tour plane that was lining up on runway 17 for some unknown reason. The wind didn't favor this runway and the last three operations were on 35. The pilot said something unintelligible and then said he couldn't land with me on the end of the runway. I continued to taxi to the end of the runway - no place else for me to go. I noticed the windsock was showing some strong activity that would make anyone with any sense want to use runway 35 rather than 17, so I advised the tour pilot that he'd have a strong tailwind if he landed on 17. I took off and saw the tour plane in an extended base leg for 17. I turned crosswind and got the heck out of there.

The flight back to North Vegas was nice, too. I was eventually told to overfly the airport at no lower than 3500 and to make right traffic for 12 Right. The wind was from 070 at 6 with some gusts that I felt on short final. I managed to get her down safely and had a great time doing it.

I only recommend going to 1G4 for the experience of landing at an interesting airport, no so much for the tours. All told, this was a great day of VFR flying in severe clear weather. 2.0 hours of cross country with two take offs and two landings other than the three that I did for the check ride.

Pictures will be posted once I get back...didn't bring the camera's cable with me.

Early Childhood Memories

Young children don't think the way adults do. Sometimes it's easy to forget that. Talking to kids in terms that adults understand - especially when it comes to numbers - can have unfortunate outcomes.

When I was about three or four years old, I had made a mess in our basement. All of my cars, trucks and tractors were scattered all over the basement floor. My father was upset about the mess and wanted me to clean it up. I had a very nice toybox that my great-grandfather had made. (I still have it in my office.) It would have been a simple matter of picking up the toys and putting them in the toybox and probably would have taken no more than ten minutes.

My father was angry and yelled, "David, you have one hour to clean up this mess! When I come back down here, I will stomp on any toys that are left on the floor!" And he turned and walked up the stairs.

I was mortified! At this young age, I could barely count to ten and I had no idea what an hour was. I thought that it was impossible to pick up all my toys in only one of those hour things. So like most children frustrated by an impossible task, I sat on the stairs and cried.

My father came back downstairs an hour later and saw that I had not picked up any of my toys. He lectured me briefly as I cried. Then, as promised, he walked around the room stomping on every one of my toys, breaking each one, one at a time. These were toys that he bought with his hard earned money. Money was tight and I am sure it pained him to keep his promise both from a financial perspective and because of the pain it would cause me. One by one, my toys disappeared in to rubble.

The most difficult toy for dad to dispose of was my John Deere tractor. My father and grandfather worked at Deere at the time and our blood was green and yellow. The family was proud to be associated with Deere & Co. and grandpa even had a gold-plated tractor hanging on the wall in his basement. I wish we still had that.

Several years later, my father gave me a nice new toy tractor and told me that he thought I was old enough to take care of it. We both remembered that horrible day when all my toys were crushed.

The lesson to be learned from this is to be careful in how you speak to your children. They don't have a full grasp of the language and abstract concepts like time and numbers can be baffling. At my young age, I knew that "one" was singular - there wasn't much to one of anything. I didn't understand the concept of an hour or how much could be done in an hour.

I believe that if my father had told me that I would have sixty minutes to complete the task, things might have turned out very differently. Although I couldn't count to sixty at the time, I remember thinking that kids who were ten were much, much older and my twenty-seven year old mother was quite old. Sixty minutes would have sounded like quite a bit of time to me. I probably would have played for a while before picking up my toys and this story would never have been remembered. So, be careful how you talk to your kids.

As a side note, I still have the John Deere toys that my parents gave me after this house cleaning.