After a hearty Denver omelette, with some extra buttery toast and hash browns with I-don't-know-what-kind-of grease (bacon?...mmmm good), it was time to load my extra 10 pounds back into the plane. This leg of the trip would be nearly identical to the trip down, but I still stayed low to gain at least a few more knots of speed.
Reaching the vicinity of Greybull, WY, I had to make another decision. I had to climb up to 10,500 if I wanted to be legal (and avoid some cumulo-granite), but I could also skirt the terrain and lengthen the trip a bit, which could also allow me to stay lower (below 3,000 above the ground). I wavered about whether to go east or west, and finally chose west again. Visualizing the flow of air around the mountains, the southeastern flanks were most likely producing some burbling downdrafts that I'd just as soon avoid.
Remarkably, as I climbed, the winds slackened a bit, and I finally broke 100 knots, but not for long. Mostly, it hung around 95. Better than before, anyway.
As I was enjoying my slow, smooth cruise, somewhere in here, the engine decided to keep me honest, and suddenly dropped about 50 RPM. This is a bit unusual. I have kept a watchful eye on the tachometer, since I have never had experience with carburetor ice, and wanted to catch even the slightest drop in power as soon as it occurred. I have read that often, pilots will not notice the drop, or sometimes will just add a bit of power to correct, without realizing the cause. So, when I hear and feel a 50 RPM flutter, I immediately pull the carb heat, push the mixture to full rich, and push the throttle to maintain my power. And then nothing.
If I had indeed had carb ice, there should have been some noticable sputtering and argument from the engine as water is melted into the cylinders. Then, the power should come back up to a normal setting, indicating that, most likely, the ice is cleared and the carb heat can be turned off. First off, the air today was very cold and dry, so icing should not have been a problem in the first place, and I'm not surprised that nothing came of the little incident. I was impressed that I reacted in a split second to what in truth was a minor change in the engine power. I probably could have done nothing and waited to see what would happen, but that's a dangerous choice if you really do have ice in there. Again, like the frost on the wing, most likely it would have turned out benign, but would I be prepared to defend my decision on the accident report? After a minute or so, I put everything back where it was, and the engine ran as if nothing had happened. A bit of water in the fuel? Who knows. But I was ready with a contingency plan if everything went bad.
The rest of the flight was uneventful until it came time for landing back in Billings. There were several planes in the pattern and arriving from outside. I requested the smaller runway more into the wind rather than take it from the side. It meant some careful spacing by the controller which, ultimately, did not work out. I probably was moving slower than he would have preferred, but all it required was a slow 360 out to the north of the field to come in and try again. This time, I was looking straight into the sun, so it was a challenge to squint for the runway and monitor my sink rate. I came in a bit high, but landed smoothly (story of my life).
All in all, a good trip with some new experiences and some new judgments that were needed to complete it successfully. There were probably lots of right answers, but luckily I didn't pick any of the wrong ones either.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Slow Boat to China, Part 1
As before, the weather forecasters have it in for me. What was supposed to be lighter winds today ended up being about the same as the last couple days. Namely, 30 to 40 knot northerly winds that turned the return trip into a 5-hour, 2-leg journey. The only redeeming factor, weather-wise, was that there was no turbulence whatsoever. For sailing upstream with a groundspeed in the 85 knot range, it was surprisingly smooth.
The funny part was that I ran a hypothetical flight plan yesterday, with the winds skipping along, and laughed at how long the trip would take, thinking, "Well, at least it's supposed to be better when I'm actually flying." No way. I charted, plotted, calculated, ciphered, and drew strange symbols on my charts, wondering what it would take to get the forecast I was promised. To no avail.
I ended up with two basic choices of routing. One that took me east, which kept me alongside the terrain but in a turbulence AIRMET. The other was more like my trip down, over some higher terrain, but toward a higher density of airfields, all of which had calm surface winds as well - and no indication of turbulence. In my first judgment of the day, I decided that I would make the flight, plan on a fuel stop whether I needed it or not, and pause during my climb to cruise to assess the winds at different altitudes. It was only the first of several decisions I had to make on the fly today.
Preflight went smoothly, except for a little thing that I haven't had to deal with before -- frost on the wings. Many pilots apparently manage to ask, "How much is too much?" But really, according to the safety data, it isn't a question. If you can see and feel it, it is theoretically enough to disrupt the airflow over the wing. Enough to affect the flight? I don't know, and I'm not interested in being a test pilot. Hence, an extra ten minutes to warm the ice with my hands and wipe it off.
I noticed that the tail section did not have any frost, and that it tended to be along certain portions of the wing. I'm guessing that the metal was heating up in the sun, but the fuel in the tanks was still below freezing, which kept the ice in place. As with many things in flying, there was probably a 99% chance that this barely perceptible ice would have not caused any problems. But as I've read elsewhere, a good rule is to imagine how your decisions would look on the accident report IF anything (ANYthing!) were to go wrong. I don't want to have to explain why I'm such an expert that I decided that I could fly with ice on the wings....
As I returned the borrowed ladder to the fuel truck, I heard some radio traffic from a plane in the pattern and some ground vehicles. Apparently, there was some maintenance work on one of the runways (of course, the one I was originally planning on using) and that it would be closed for a couple of hours. In my case, this wasn't anything more than an inconvenience, since the winds were calm and I would just have to taxi farther away to get to the other runway.
I took off, and climbed to 9,500 feet, leveled off, and saw that the winds were already doing around 25 knots. Unfortunately, this was as low as I felt like flying at this point, only about 2,500 feet above the ground. As I arrived at my first waypoint, Medicine Bow VOR, I again tried something new. I contacted FlightWatch on 122.0 and asked about conditions to either side of the mountains directly in front of me. The turbulence AIRMET was still active, and so I asked about the current conditions at Riverton, WY. With calm winds on the surface there, I decided to go west. It meant a climb up to 10,000 or 10,500 and flying over some spinning wind turbines, but it turned out smooth, if slow. I was down to 80 knots groundspeed in a few spots. It felt like I was standing still. It was nevertheless a much better flight than the last time I had such a strong headwind on a cross-country flight.
I poked along and finally reached my fuel stop at Riverton. Again, some judgment was in order. Theoretically, I could have probably streteched the flight all the way to Billings. Though slow, my speed was still a bit higher than predicted by the flight planning. Would the winds aloft stay that way? What if it turned out I couldn't make it -- where was the next fuel? It was a good exercise, but I had made up my mind beforehand anyway. Best to stop, gas up, eat, and be less fatigued on the final leg.
The funny part was that I ran a hypothetical flight plan yesterday, with the winds skipping along, and laughed at how long the trip would take, thinking, "Well, at least it's supposed to be better when I'm actually flying." No way. I charted, plotted, calculated, ciphered, and drew strange symbols on my charts, wondering what it would take to get the forecast I was promised. To no avail.
I ended up with two basic choices of routing. One that took me east, which kept me alongside the terrain but in a turbulence AIRMET. The other was more like my trip down, over some higher terrain, but toward a higher density of airfields, all of which had calm surface winds as well - and no indication of turbulence. In my first judgment of the day, I decided that I would make the flight, plan on a fuel stop whether I needed it or not, and pause during my climb to cruise to assess the winds at different altitudes. It was only the first of several decisions I had to make on the fly today.
Preflight went smoothly, except for a little thing that I haven't had to deal with before -- frost on the wings. Many pilots apparently manage to ask, "How much is too much?" But really, according to the safety data, it isn't a question. If you can see and feel it, it is theoretically enough to disrupt the airflow over the wing. Enough to affect the flight? I don't know, and I'm not interested in being a test pilot. Hence, an extra ten minutes to warm the ice with my hands and wipe it off.
I noticed that the tail section did not have any frost, and that it tended to be along certain portions of the wing. I'm guessing that the metal was heating up in the sun, but the fuel in the tanks was still below freezing, which kept the ice in place. As with many things in flying, there was probably a 99% chance that this barely perceptible ice would have not caused any problems. But as I've read elsewhere, a good rule is to imagine how your decisions would look on the accident report IF anything (ANYthing!) were to go wrong. I don't want to have to explain why I'm such an expert that I decided that I could fly with ice on the wings....
As I returned the borrowed ladder to the fuel truck, I heard some radio traffic from a plane in the pattern and some ground vehicles. Apparently, there was some maintenance work on one of the runways (of course, the one I was originally planning on using) and that it would be closed for a couple of hours. In my case, this wasn't anything more than an inconvenience, since the winds were calm and I would just have to taxi farther away to get to the other runway.
I took off, and climbed to 9,500 feet, leveled off, and saw that the winds were already doing around 25 knots. Unfortunately, this was as low as I felt like flying at this point, only about 2,500 feet above the ground. As I arrived at my first waypoint, Medicine Bow VOR, I again tried something new. I contacted FlightWatch on 122.0 and asked about conditions to either side of the mountains directly in front of me. The turbulence AIRMET was still active, and so I asked about the current conditions at Riverton, WY. With calm winds on the surface there, I decided to go west. It meant a climb up to 10,000 or 10,500 and flying over some spinning wind turbines, but it turned out smooth, if slow. I was down to 80 knots groundspeed in a few spots. It felt like I was standing still. It was nevertheless a much better flight than the last time I had such a strong headwind on a cross-country flight.
I poked along and finally reached my fuel stop at Riverton. Again, some judgment was in order. Theoretically, I could have probably streteched the flight all the way to Billings. Though slow, my speed was still a bit higher than predicted by the flight planning. Would the winds aloft stay that way? What if it turned out I couldn't make it -- where was the next fuel? It was a good exercise, but I had made up my mind beforehand anyway. Best to stop, gas up, eat, and be less fatigued on the final leg.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Out Yonder
Eventually, cross country trips need to cover some new ground. While my past ones have at least been over territory that I am familiar with from the surface, this trip was into "uncharted" territory. New mountain ranges, new towns, and into Denver Center ARTCC sectors.
If flying is indeed hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror, this flight may rank fairly high. We weren't in code "red", but at least orange. 99% of the flight, from Billings, over Thermopolis, and into Laramie, was uneventful. Yesterday's forecast that showed mild winds apparently wasn't good enough for the flying gods today. I looked it up this morning and saw 20 knot wind predicted for this afternoon in Laramie. Blah. That blows.
What it did do, however, was give me a nice tailwind for a good part of the trip, and while the big iron was slogging it out above 35,000 feet, begging ATC for any relief from the turbulence, I was happily cruising along at 9,500 in fairly smooth air. Just a few burbles from nearby mountains until I was about 60 miles from Laramie. Then it came apart.
I was picking up some pretty good bounces, and climbed up to 10,500 to see if that would clear it up. It was a bit better, but by this time, I was starting to need to descend. And then, the happy news on the weather report -- winds 32, gusting 40! Well, at least it was right down runway 30. I had to quickly get things squared away, since my groundspeed at this point was around 140 knots. What usually would have been a fairly liesurely descent was accelerated, and the winds weren't changing on the surface.
There was one plane flying touch and go's (!) in the wind, so I figured it couldn't be too bad. I was trying to evaluate whether I should use all, some, or none of the flaps on approach, but time was running out. I was scooting along like the dickens.
I flew one of the fastest patterns I think I've ever done, and as I got turned on final, I had to keep medium power just to keep making forward progress. To heck with the flaps. I could land at 80 knots if I had to and still be at a reasonable groundspeed. I dropped a bit in the gusts only about 1/4 mile from the runway, but still had good control, and I just kept power on, with a close eye on my airspeed and vertical speed. As I crossed the threshold, power came to idle, and I was ready to go around, since I was bobbling pretty good. I floated a bit, but touched down soft and a little fast. Enough for a couple of low hops, but keeping the nose up got me slowed down fairly quickly.
As if that weren't enough, I had to taxi at a snail's pace toward the ramp as the wind buffeted the plane and tried to weathervane me into the weeds a couple of times. I parked and shut down the engine, but still felt as if we would lift of again with the winds ripping over the field.
This was a good lesson in keeping your options open (where would I go if I couldn't land in the wind?), knowing the airplane (I was attempting a no-flap landing in a plane I had never landed in that configuration), and being ready for the unexpected (those were some fierce gusts). Luckily, it was virtually a no-crosswind condition, or things could have turned out different.
Now that all is done for the day, I can work on preparing for the flight home.
If flying is indeed hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror, this flight may rank fairly high. We weren't in code "red", but at least orange. 99% of the flight, from Billings, over Thermopolis, and into Laramie, was uneventful. Yesterday's forecast that showed mild winds apparently wasn't good enough for the flying gods today. I looked it up this morning and saw 20 knot wind predicted for this afternoon in Laramie. Blah. That blows.
What it did do, however, was give me a nice tailwind for a good part of the trip, and while the big iron was slogging it out above 35,000 feet, begging ATC for any relief from the turbulence, I was happily cruising along at 9,500 in fairly smooth air. Just a few burbles from nearby mountains until I was about 60 miles from Laramie. Then it came apart.
I was picking up some pretty good bounces, and climbed up to 10,500 to see if that would clear it up. It was a bit better, but by this time, I was starting to need to descend. And then, the happy news on the weather report -- winds 32, gusting 40! Well, at least it was right down runway 30. I had to quickly get things squared away, since my groundspeed at this point was around 140 knots. What usually would have been a fairly liesurely descent was accelerated, and the winds weren't changing on the surface.
There was one plane flying touch and go's (!) in the wind, so I figured it couldn't be too bad. I was trying to evaluate whether I should use all, some, or none of the flaps on approach, but time was running out. I was scooting along like the dickens.
I flew one of the fastest patterns I think I've ever done, and as I got turned on final, I had to keep medium power just to keep making forward progress. To heck with the flaps. I could land at 80 knots if I had to and still be at a reasonable groundspeed. I dropped a bit in the gusts only about 1/4 mile from the runway, but still had good control, and I just kept power on, with a close eye on my airspeed and vertical speed. As I crossed the threshold, power came to idle, and I was ready to go around, since I was bobbling pretty good. I floated a bit, but touched down soft and a little fast. Enough for a couple of low hops, but keeping the nose up got me slowed down fairly quickly.
As if that weren't enough, I had to taxi at a snail's pace toward the ramp as the wind buffeted the plane and tried to weathervane me into the weeds a couple of times. I parked and shut down the engine, but still felt as if we would lift of again with the winds ripping over the field.
This was a good lesson in keeping your options open (where would I go if I couldn't land in the wind?), knowing the airplane (I was attempting a no-flap landing in a plane I had never landed in that configuration), and being ready for the unexpected (those were some fierce gusts). Luckily, it was virtually a no-crosswind condition, or things could have turned out different.
Now that all is done for the day, I can work on preparing for the flight home.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
A Little Practice
Today's flight was intended to bang the rust off in preparation for a cross-country flight tomorrow to Laramie, Wyoming. Though the winds were a bit higher than forecast yesterday, it wasn't too bad, and in fact was smooth enough that my 5-year old son got to ride along. I had made a plan to do some ground reference and miscellaneous other work to stay sharp, but decided to stay upwind of the airport in case it got too bumpy and I had to make a quick escape. This put me over more populated areas rather than the normal practice area, so I improvised a bit to make it a sightseeing trip and a few touch-and-go's rather than spinning around in circles.
It turned out not to be as bumpy as I thought, though there was still quite a bit of wind aloft. Since it's been so long since my last flight (and I'm still getting used to the Cessna 172), I decided to minimize my crosswind work on takeoff and used the smaller runway 25 rather than the primary 28R. It meant I had to taxi along a route I had never used before, and almost made a wrong turn, but the ground controller kept me on the right track.
With a 15-knot wind, liftoff was pretty quick. We had a few bumps climbing up to 6,500 feet, but it smoothed out after we got away from the sharp terrain around the field. We passed and circled back around the city to the west. Even though I was technically outside the Class C airspace, the controller let me keep my transponder code and I stayed on frequency with him. I don't know if he was able to do this since it was pretty slow today, or just because I had told him what I was doing (namely, sightseeing). Probably a combination of both.
We cruised along for a bit, found our house, flew over an oil refinery, along the Yellowstone River, and then came back into town. Since the wind was still up a bit, I requested a touch-and-go on Runway 25 again. This was interesting, since I didn't have a good view of the runway, and was used to aiming for the end of 28R, which is a 1/2 mile away from the 25 threshold. So, as I was cleared into the pattern, I was doing a bit of hunting to figure out how to get set up right and fighting the shifting winds as I descended. When I looked back at my GPS track though, I actually was just right, it just didn't feel that good.
I carried a bit of extra speed into the approach for the gusty headwind and had about 15 degrees of flaps rather than 20, the normal landing setting. That's one nice thing about the Cessna flaps -- you have more flexibility to set them for what "feels" right for the conditions. 20 degrees would have had me sinking too fast, but 10 would have had me floating a bit too much on touchdown. The landing had a bit of a hop, but nothing huge. I started to put the coals back to it, and then remembered, "carb heat!", and took an extra second to get set right.
Since there were only a couple of other aircraft around today, I requested another touch-and-go on 25. This was approved, but now I had to decide how to fly the pattern on a slightly skewed runway with traffic intended for the main one. It became clear that flying a normal pattern would not interfere with the other planes, so that was what I did. This time, I flew a normal downwind, base, and final, and had a bit smoother approach. Still a bit of extra speed, but came in nice and soft.
Of course, now, trying to remember to shut off the carb heat before adding power had its own consequences -- I forgot to raise the flaps. I didn't notice a lot of difference on climbout, but as soon as I tried to level off, it was apparent that something was not right. In a way, this was a good experience, since I now know that in an emergency, I can add power and deal with the flaps (carefully) after stabilizing the flight. In this case, I got everything straightened out as I was on downwind, and with the winds dying down a bit, I selected the main runway 28R to better stay with the flow.
Now that I was juggling the shift to the different runway, I forgot to put the carb heat on before reducing the throttle. It's always something.
When all was said and done, the time away from flying clearly takes its toll. While never in any dangerous position, and though I wouldn't say I was "behind the airplane", I need to ingrain the habits I need for the Cessna the same way that I have in the DA-20. I was at least with it enough to realize my errors in time, and could effectively deal with them without putting the flight in jeopardy. I suppose that is the key.
In a final bit of irony, the whole reason for flying to day was to prepare for a cross-country, but it turns out I will fly a different plane tomorrow anyway. That's aviation for you.
It turned out not to be as bumpy as I thought, though there was still quite a bit of wind aloft. Since it's been so long since my last flight (and I'm still getting used to the Cessna 172), I decided to minimize my crosswind work on takeoff and used the smaller runway 25 rather than the primary 28R. It meant I had to taxi along a route I had never used before, and almost made a wrong turn, but the ground controller kept me on the right track.
With a 15-knot wind, liftoff was pretty quick. We had a few bumps climbing up to 6,500 feet, but it smoothed out after we got away from the sharp terrain around the field. We passed and circled back around the city to the west. Even though I was technically outside the Class C airspace, the controller let me keep my transponder code and I stayed on frequency with him. I don't know if he was able to do this since it was pretty slow today, or just because I had told him what I was doing (namely, sightseeing). Probably a combination of both.
We cruised along for a bit, found our house, flew over an oil refinery, along the Yellowstone River, and then came back into town. Since the wind was still up a bit, I requested a touch-and-go on Runway 25 again. This was interesting, since I didn't have a good view of the runway, and was used to aiming for the end of 28R, which is a 1/2 mile away from the 25 threshold. So, as I was cleared into the pattern, I was doing a bit of hunting to figure out how to get set up right and fighting the shifting winds as I descended. When I looked back at my GPS track though, I actually was just right, it just didn't feel that good.
I carried a bit of extra speed into the approach for the gusty headwind and had about 15 degrees of flaps rather than 20, the normal landing setting. That's one nice thing about the Cessna flaps -- you have more flexibility to set them for what "feels" right for the conditions. 20 degrees would have had me sinking too fast, but 10 would have had me floating a bit too much on touchdown. The landing had a bit of a hop, but nothing huge. I started to put the coals back to it, and then remembered, "carb heat!", and took an extra second to get set right.
Since there were only a couple of other aircraft around today, I requested another touch-and-go on 25. This was approved, but now I had to decide how to fly the pattern on a slightly skewed runway with traffic intended for the main one. It became clear that flying a normal pattern would not interfere with the other planes, so that was what I did. This time, I flew a normal downwind, base, and final, and had a bit smoother approach. Still a bit of extra speed, but came in nice and soft.
Of course, now, trying to remember to shut off the carb heat before adding power had its own consequences -- I forgot to raise the flaps. I didn't notice a lot of difference on climbout, but as soon as I tried to level off, it was apparent that something was not right. In a way, this was a good experience, since I now know that in an emergency, I can add power and deal with the flaps (carefully) after stabilizing the flight. In this case, I got everything straightened out as I was on downwind, and with the winds dying down a bit, I selected the main runway 28R to better stay with the flow.
Now that I was juggling the shift to the different runway, I forgot to put the carb heat on before reducing the throttle. It's always something.
When all was said and done, the time away from flying clearly takes its toll. While never in any dangerous position, and though I wouldn't say I was "behind the airplane", I need to ingrain the habits I need for the Cessna the same way that I have in the DA-20. I was at least with it enough to realize my errors in time, and could effectively deal with them without putting the flight in jeopardy. I suppose that is the key.
In a final bit of irony, the whole reason for flying to day was to prepare for a cross-country, but it turns out I will fly a different plane tomorrow anyway. That's aviation for you.
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