Below are the 14 most recent journal entries recorded in pilotben's LiveJournal:

Thursday, September 11th, 2008
3:10 pm	Commercial update On Monday evening I'm meeting up with a flight instructor to map out a plan on how to complete my remaining commercial requirements. Talking to him on the phone just now, he seemed to indicate that the two 100nm cross-country flights were supposed to be solo (as I originally thought) even though the regs seem to indicate it is dual. So we'll clarify that. Also I'll ask about my logbook entry for the 7 night landings at SJC and if it will hold up to scrutiny on a checkride. And finally I'll have him endorse my logbook so I can take the commercial written test. Lately I've really been plowing through my Gleim Commercial Pilot knowledge test study guide and last night I took a practice test on which I only missed 3 out of 100 questions. I aim to take the written test sometime next week. So with that said, the requirements I still need are: * 30 more hours of total time * 4.8 more hours of dual instruction in a complex aircraft * dual instruction (and then solo practice) in the commercial specific flight maneuvers (chandelles, lazy eights, eights on pylons, steep turns (50° bank), steep spirals) * 100nm day and night dual cross country flights, if needed * Score 70% or better on the commercial knowledge test More info on the maneuvers here: Chandelle: Wikipedia, AOPA how to teach Eights on Pylons: Wikipedia, AOPA how to teach Lazy Eights: AOPA how to teach The FAA publishes Practical Test Standards which define the precision with which each of the above maneuvers must be performed. The PTS can be found here (pdf) A nice summary of all the commercial checkride maneuvers (including ones that I have already been exposed to on the private pilot checkride) is here (Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008
1:59 am	Santa Monica: Long solo cross country I've flown to Mulege, Mexico (816nm), Hillsboro, OR (486nm), and Fallbrook, CA (342nm) but these flights were all with passengers on board. The regulations require pilots to fly a 300+ mile cross country flight solo in order to get a commercial license. This flight must include landings at three different airports. Additionally, one point of landing must be at least a 250nm straight line distance from your original airport. In other words you can't get your 300 miles by flying 150 miles, landing, and then turning around and coming back. This is all excitingly spelled out in 14 CFR 61.129. One more thing that isn't actually specified in the above section of the regulations is that a "cross country" flight is defined as a flight to a point at least 50nm from where you took off. This means that when planning this flight, I couldn't fly a 100 mile leg, a 40 mile leg, and a 180 mile leg since that middle leg is too short. After considering dozens of combinations of airports, here's what I settled on: PAO-KIC-TSP-SMO. On a map it looks like this: It's got landings at three airports. As I mentioned in a previous post, the leg lengths are 88, 146, and 68 miles for a total distance of 302 miles. Santa Monica is 273 miles from Palo Alto. In addition to meeting the FAA's requirements, I also wanted to pick airports I'd never been to and ones that I'd otherwise have no reason to visit. I'm trying to visit as many airports as I can and someday I might actually want to make someplace like Santa Barbara or San Luis Obispo an actual destination. That made these places less desirable to visit for purposes of this flight. ( Read more... ) Date: September 4, 2008 Aircraft: Cessna 172 - N6253G Origin: PAO Destination: KIC, TSP, SMO Duration: 3.4 hours Origin: SMO Destination: PAO Duration: 2.8 hours, night (Comment on this)
12:09 am	Mountain flying in the Sierras, part 2 After spending Saturday exploring the Lee Vining and Mono Lake area and then camping in town for the night, we walked the 1.7 miles back to the airplane on Sunday morning. We weren't the only ones at the airport: Ultralight with controls like a hang glider ( Read more... ) Date: August 24, 2008 Origin: Lee Vining (O24) Destination: Truckee (TRK), Nut Tree (VCB), Palo Alto (PAO) Total time: (need to check my log book) (Comment on this)
Monday, September 8th, 2008
11:53 pm	Flying with the 737s Well tonight I successfully completed seven solo landings at night at an airport with an operating control tower, thus making 10 total such landings and fulfilling one of the commercial license requirements. Then I came back to Palo Alto for landing #8 however this one "doesn't count" because the tower there was closed for the night. In fact I was sure to log my flight very carefully tonight in order to prove that my first 7 landings were "legit". The wrong way to log it: Date Aircraft N-Number Route Landings Night Total 9/8 C-152 N6334M PAO-SJC-PAO 8 1.2 1.2 This shows the entire flight but there's no way to tell where those 8 landings were. I could have done 5 at PAO and 3 at SJC, no way to tell. Here's how I actually logged it: Date Aircraft N-Number Route Landings Night Total 9/8 C-152 N6334M PAO-SJC 7 1.0 1.0 9/8 C-152 N6334M SJC-PAO 1.0 0.2 0.2 And now that I've typed this out, I just realized that it's still ambiguous! The way I logged it, I could have done 6 landings at PAO, 1 at SJC, and then 1 more back at PAO which wouldn't meet the requirements. I should have logged it as three separate entries. Well it's down in ink now. I'll ask an instructor if I should worry about this next time I get some dual. Anyway the landings went well although my smooth touch seemed to fade as the night wore on. I did one short field takeoff, two soft field takeoffs, one partial flaps landing, one no flaps landing, three full stop landings (to satisfy my night currency for carrying passengers). It's fun flying at SJC with jets landing and departing on the other runway only 700 feet to the right of the one I was using. I can just imagine the Southwest pilots seeing me and thinking "Man flying 737s is fun but sometimes I miss putzing around in a two place cessna at 90 knots!" The great thing about flying the 152 at night is that it "only" costs $81/hour. I got in my 8 landings tonight for under $100! (Comment on this)
Saturday, September 6th, 2008
11:15 pm	Mountain flying in the Sierras, part 1 Date: August 23, 2008 Origin: Palo Alto Destination: Lee Vining (O24) Total time: 2.0 hours??? (need to double check my logbook when I get home) This was a fun flight and one that I had spent a lot of time thinking about before ever driving to the airport (both pre-flight planning as well as general eagerness about the trip). Things went just as I planned with a couple small exceptions. ( Read more... ) Approaching Lee Vining and Mono Lake. Landing strip is smack in the middle just below the lake. ( Read more... ) Next up: Low pass over Mono Lake, up to Tahoe, landings at Truckee and Nut Tree, and back home overflying Oakland Airport at 2000'! (Comment on this)
10:26 pm	Plans canceled I was going to fly tonight. I reserved the plane from 9pm to 11pm to take advantage of the cheaper night rental rate. Then I was going to hop down to San Jose and do touch and goes on runway 29 which is the short runway (4600 feet instead of 11000 feet like the main runways that the jets use). Hopefully I would be able to get 7 landings in and cross another commercial license requirement off the list. Alas the plane was low on oil with only about 3.8 quarts (the minimum is 4). Usually this is no problem, just take a quart from the flying club office, add it to the engine, and go fly. However there was no extra oil to be found. The flying club has been in a state of upheaval for the past couple months now. Back in June they started doing some construction inside the club "office" which is basically a furnished hangar on the airport. A couple weeks into the project they got tied up in trying to secure all the necessary building permits and no work has been done since. So the club now sits with the carpet torn out, naked rafters instead of a ceiling, and nobody allowed inside. There is a computer terminal pushed right up to the front door so that pilots can check airplanes out of the system and do flight planning. The desk that the computer sits on is physically blocking access to the interior of the building. All this distraction is probably a reason why the supply of spare oil was allowed to run out. I'm looking forward to the day when I can actually hang out at the club again. So anyway, I didn't fly tonight. I could have taken a different plane but I decided to just stay on the ground instead. First, the plane I was going to take is $23 cheaper an hour than the next cheapest one. Second, I don't "need" to fly tonight (it's not like I have a check ride tomorrow and have to meet some requirement for that). Third, I felt like it was a good excuse to type in here which is something I've been putting off for a while. I may even get a chance to post about my trips to Mono Lake and Santa Monica! (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008
11:13 pm	Commercial license requirements Here are the requirements I still need to meet in order to get my commercial pilot's license: * 250 hours of total time (I have 219.4) * 10 hours of training in a complex aircraft (I have 5.2) * 3 hours of training in the last 60 days (I have 0) * Day VFR cross-country flight with an instructor. 100nm straight line distance and 2 hours minimum. * Night VFR cross-country, same qualifiers as above * Long solo cross-country. 300nm total length, 250nm straight line distance, landings at 3 airports. * 10 solo night takeoffs and landings (I have 5 but only 3 are logged correctly) This is a lot of things left. I've read the regulations a dozen times but it wasn't until tonight that I read them carefully enough. For the last several months I've been thinking that the two 100 mile cross-country trips (one day, one night) were supposed to be solo. Turns out they're supposed to be with an instructor instead. Tomorrow I'm flying down to Santa Monica which will take care of the long solo cross-country but it won't take care of the night cross-country like I thought it would. Really it's not a big deal because I still need a minum of 4.8 hours of instruction in a complex aircraft and I could combine that with the cross-country trips. Anyway tomorrow's flight will go like this: Palo Alto (PAO) - Mesa Del Rey (KIC) (88 miles) KIC - Tehachapi (TSP) (146 miles) TSP - Santa Monica (SMO) (68 miles) Total distance: 302 miles :) (Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008
12:53 pm	Upcoming Mono Lake trip My next upcoming flight is to Lee Vining (O24) near Mono Lake. This will be an overnighter. Fly in Saturday, camp the night, fly out Sunday morning hitting up Lake Tahoe on the return trip. In order to get to Lee Vining I will need to cross my highest terrain yet. I don't have much mountain flying experience but I have read a lot about it and I'm taking extra precautions for this trip. For route planning, the main things to decide are where to cross the mountains, how to be absolutely sure I'm crossing them in the right place, and what I would do in the event of an in-flight emergency over said mountains. There are two main choices for mountain crossing locations. Option one is to fly up towards Lake Tahoe where the terrain is significantly lower (7000 feet instead of 10000 feet) and then turn southbound to Lee Vining. This is a more cautious route but it adds about 55 miles to the trip. The other option (the one I have chosen) is to cross at Tioga Pass which is almost directly in line between PAO and O24. Aside from traversing higher terrain, another issue with this route is that I'll be coming over the pass very close to my airport which will still be 5000 below me. It will take some time to bleed off that altitude and get into a position to land. Not too long ago I read an article (can't remember if it was in AOPA Pilot magazine or on a website somewhere) about a plane crash a couple years ago. The plane was flying from the Oshkosh, WI back to the Bay Area. Somewhere in Utah they were navigating through some high terrain and took a wrong turn. Instead of a mountain pass, they flew into a box canyon. With rising terrain all around and not enough room to make a turn, the plane crashed killing the pilot. With this in mind I want to be extra 100% sure I'm flying where I think I am. I've spent so much time looking at the chart and at my landmarks, trying to visualize how it will look from the air that it kind of feels like I'm getting ready for my first solo cross country all over again. VFR sectional chart showing Tioga Pass and Mono Lake area I will fly outbound from the Manteca VOR on the 068 radial which will put me right over the Hetch Hetchy reservoir. This is a big, long, skinny body of water with a dam on the near end. It's kind of crescent shaped. There are two other reservoirs to the north (left) of my flight path that I'll also be looking out for. Once I hit Hetch Hetchy there will be a river feeding into it from the far end. This river should be in a noticibly pronounced canyon. I'll follow that river/canyon until I get to a paved two lane highway. There will be a bend in the road with a lodge and some buildings nearby. This is highway 120. As long as I keep it in sight and follow it over the pass, I'll be fine. Also the highway will be an option for an emergency landing. Not a super option but better than a granite wall. So with that out of the way, the other mountain flying issues to consider are wind and density altitude. I plan to be up, over, and back down on the ground by 8:00am which should be before the winds pick up. I've been checking historic wind data for some nearby weather stations and this should give me a good couple of hours before any mountain wave turbulence would kick in. As for density altitude, the field elevation is 6800 feet and the high temperature calls for 90 degrees F which means a density altitude of about 10000 feet. I plan to depart Sunday morning when it's nice and cool out but even if I had to take off during the heat of the day I'd still manage. Under these conditions the POH gives a takeoff roll of 1410' with 2560' required to clear a 50 foot obstacle. These are both well below the 4000' of available runway. Mono lake itself is 500' below the airport elevation so even in the worst worst case scenario I could point the plane in that direction and circle the lake to pick up altitude. One other consideration is that I'll be leaving Palo Alto around 6am on Saturday morning. It will almost certainly be overcast and I'll have to depart IFR. The tower will be closed. I will be sure to pick up my clearance via cell phone since Oakland Center and Norcal weren't very helpful to me last time. The MEA across the Sierras near my intended crossing point is 15100' feet, they really don't want you scraping any mountain tops when you're flying around there IFR! This is a lot higher than a Cessna 172 will go and I don't have supplemental oxygen anyway. Therefore I'll have to cancel IFR somewhere in the central valley and continue at a VFR cruising altitude of 11500 feet. Specific to the Yosemite region is a special law prohibiting flying within 2000 feet of terrain. Since the pass is 9943 feet high, I will have to climb up to at least 12000 as I go through. This is normally a westbound IFR cruising altitude but the nearest IFR traffic will be above me at 15100' or higher so it won't really matter! I mentioned that on the return flight I will head north to Tahoe instead of flying back direct to Palo Alto. Multiple reasons for this. First, I'd have to climb 6000 feet between taking off and being able to cross over Tioga Pass to the west. Since the airport and the pass are so close this would mean climbing in circles. Lots of circles. If I'm going to burn that fuel to climb I'd rather do it in a straight line and actually go somewhere. Second, there'll be new scenery by taking a different route home. Third, it will give me a lot of options for refueling somewhere (South Lake Tahoe, Carson City, Truckee, etc). For all the planning I've done for this trip, there's still one thing I don't know about: how to get around on the ground near Mono Lake! I'll report back how that unfolds after the trip. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
12:06 pm	Elk Grove day trip Flew to Elk Grove last weekend in the club's Cessna 152. This was my first cross country flight in the little plane and it worked out really well. The only thing wrong with the day is that the person flying the plane before me was an hour and a half late returning it. This turned my 1:00pm departure into a 2:45pm departure instead. The left door is really hard/impossible to close from inside this plane and so I entered through the right door, climbed over into the left seat, and then Susanne got in after me - just like flying the club's Piper Warrior which has only a right door. The other interesting thing that happened while still on the ground is that I leaned out the engine too much after doing my run-up and the engine died before I could shove the mixture knob back in. Not a big deal this time but it wouldn't reflect very well on me if I was flying professionally and did this. Once cleared for takeoff we rolled down the runway and took off uneventfully, got cleared for an early crosswind turn, and headed on course towards Elk Grove. The climb performance of this plane isn't the greatest with two people and full fuel and it seemed to take forever to reach 2000 feet. Departing from Palo Alto puts you underneath the SFO class B airspace and as you proceed eastbound you can gradually climb higher and higher until you're out from under it completely. Well I came pretty close to clipping the class B on my climbout. Part of the reason was misinterpreting the roads drawn on the chart and thinking I was farther along than I was. Another contributing factor is that the sluggish climb performance lulled me into thinking I didn't have to keep an eye on my altitude as usual ("This plane climbs like such a dog there's no way I could possibly bust the class B airspace!"). Anyway I have flown this route enough times to not be making this kind of mistake and I will be more careful next time. We initially climbed to 3500 and then, once clear of the hills near Mt. Diablo, dropped down to 2500 for the rest of the flight. There are about 6-7 very tall radio towers just north of this route. They stand about 2200' high and it's weird to be cruising over the flat, flat Sacramento River delta and be seeing almost eye to eye with the tops of the towers. The landing at Elk Grove was a lot of fun. There was almost a direct crosswind of about 12 knots. The runway is only 35 feet wide. I landed very long, probably at midfield or so, and made sure to take my time get the plane out of a crab and into a slip. The long landing worked nicely because I didn't have to taxi as far since the parking area is at the far end of the runway. Total time in the air was a quick 46 minutes and I even beat my parents to the airport by about 5 minutes. Had lunch with the folks which was nice since I hadn't seen them in about 3 months. During the visit I was periodically checking the weather and watching the wind at Sac Executive airport (SAC). When it came time to fly back home the winds at SAC were 190 degrees, 12 knots gusting to 20. This sure felt accurate once we got to the Elk Grove airport. The runway there is 11/29 and so wind from 190 is almost a direct crosswind, just like when we arrived. Fun! My takeoff was a little ham fisted and I launched a bit too early, lost some airspeed from a gust of wind dissipating, and had the stall horn give a couple blips. Nothing scary but a reminder to add in that gust factor during approach and takeoff. The flight back was 52 minutes in the air due to the headwind. Coming across Fremont we could see that the entire north portion of the bay was covered in a low overcast. Nothing but clouds north of about San Carlos and Hayward. Flying across the bay to PAO we watched the sun sink beneath these clouds and then once on the ground Susanne noticed the full moon to the east, barely managing to hoist itself above the horizon. It was a good day for flying. Date: August 16, 2008 Aircraft: N6334M - Cessna 152 Origin: Palo Alto (PAO) Destination: Elk Grove (E27) (round trip) Duration: 1.8 hours (Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 6th, 2008
6:44 am	Canada pictures I posted pictures of my trip to Canada here (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008
11:55 pm	Romping around in a Cessna 152 The last time I flew was 2.5 weeks ago and tomorrow I am going out of town again for another week. With that in mind I really wanted to get some fun flying in today. No destination, just go up and practice some airwork and then do a few practice landings. Date: August 5, 2008 Aircraft: N6334M - Cessna 152 Origin: Palo Alto Destination: Local Duration: 1.4 hours I reserved the Cessna 152 which has two seats, 110 horsepower, and doesn't stall with full flaps until about 35 knots. This makes landing into a strong headwind a lot of fun. With today's 15 knot winds straight down the runway I was landing at about 20-25 knots ground speed! Anyway the first order of business was to head west out towards the coast and practice maneuvers. The airplane is very light compared to what I've been flying recently and I was overcontrolling it at first, especially putting in too much rudder when initiating turns. So after I got out to the practice area and made sure no other planes were around, I started by practicing steep turns. I was focusing on keeping the plane coordinated, maintaining 45 degrees of bank angle, maintaining altitude, and rolling out of the turn on the same heading that I entered it for a full 360 degree turn. The things giving me the most trouble were the coordination (I was still giving too much rudder) and also banking too steeply. Compared to the heavier Cardinal, the 152 rolls right over with very little input and at first I was cranking it over to 60-70° and then having to back out some of the bank. After a few turns in each direction I was doing a lot better though. Next I did slow flight. First I just slowed the plane down to about 45 knots and did turns left and right. Then I practiced transitioning from normal flight to slow flight and back while maintaining heading and altitude. No real surprises here. No stalls or ground reference maneuvers this time. I did overfly the abandoned airstrip that is up in the hills inside Butano State Park. I had visited here while hiking once and I must say it looks much smaller from the air. It makes me wonder how big the strip was when it was in operation and what kind of planes landed there. I headed out towards the Pigeon Point lighthouse and descended to 1000 feet but the marine layer was coming in and I had to climb out of there to avoid it. Then it was back to to Palo Alto to do some pattern work. I did a full stop landing the first time and taxied back. Then it was three more touch and goes, another full stop landing, a short field takeoff, and one more full stop landing before I called it a day. I was focusing here on flying a tight pattern and making crisp, decisive turns from one leg to the next. Also I was paying attention to levelling off exactly at 800 feet. When I was doing my tailwheel training we did nothing but takeoffs and landings for the first few sessions and I got really good at flying in the traffic pattern but that fades after a few months of not practicing. It was good practice today and I really felt like I was being consistent and making good approaches and landings. There was just enough of a crosswind component to notice and compensating for it seemed to come as naturally as it ever has. Overall it was a lot of fun today to fly a little featherweight plane and just go out for a joyride. It makes me want to fly the 152 more often! (Comment on this)
9:45 pm	Ukiah flight Contrary to what it might seem, I'm not abandoning this project after just two posts! I left on a road trip to Canada the day after my last flight and didn't get back until last Thursday. So without further ado .. Date: July 16, 2008 Aircraft: N26WG - Cessna 177RG Origin: Palo Alto Destination: Ukiah Duration: 2.2 hours As mentioned in my last post, this was supposed to be a flight to Little River airport in Mendocino for a bike ride however for some reason the destination above says Ukiah. Hmmm. This ended up being just one of many things that didn't go quite as planned. First, I didn't get much sleep the night before. Okay, actually I didn't sleep at all. I was too excited and it's often hard for me to fall asleep knowing that my alarm is going to go off at some ungodly early hour like 5am the next morning. So instead of sleeping I checked and rechecked my flight plan, the weather, TFRs, instrument approaches at airports I might need to land at. I drew my intended route on my IFR chart as well as the VFR sectional chart. Finally I loaded bike, bike gear, and flying gear into the car and headed out around 5:30am. First stop was Starbucks to get some caffeine. Preflight I arrived at the airport around 6:00am and grabbed the airplane tach book, printed a few approach plates, filed my flight plan online, checked the weather one more time. Palo Alto tower doesn't open until 7am and so there was no weather observation there but Moffett's automated weather was reporting an overcast layer at about 1500 feet. There was a PIREP (pilot report) saying the cloud tops were at 2200 feet meaning a 700 foot cloud layer which should only take a minute to climb through. Everything was good to go and so I headed to the plane and preflighted it. This involves checking the fuel quantity. Now when the fuel truck comes by and fills up the airplanes, they usually draw a line across the front tire with chalk. This morning there was no chalk and so I had to guess the amount of fuel by a combination of visually looking into the tanks and also using the notoriously unreliable fuel gauges. As an aside, the fuel gauges are only mandated to read accurately when the tanks are EMPTY. If there is any fuel available, the gauges can say whatever they please and not be breaking any regulations! I dipped my fingers into each tank and could easily touch fuel so I thought they were mostly full. The Cessna 177 has 60 gallons of usable fuel and my flight plan called for a fuel burn of 12 gallons to Little River. To be legal I need to add a 45 minute reserve or about 6 gallons at a low power economy cruise setting. So I needed at least 18 gallons of fuel and I was estimating 40 gallons in the tanks so no need to top off. More on this later ... Next I took the seat and both wheels off my bike, wrapped the frame in a blanket, and loaded it in the back seats. The wheels and seat go behind that in the luggage compartment. 6:40am, at last it was time to depart. The engine fired right up and I went to turn on the avionics master. To my chagrin the number 1 radio came on but not the number 2 radio. Now previously when I flew this plane with an instructor, the first radio became slightly loose in the panel and, even though it was powered on, we could receive but not transmit. I assumed something similar was happening this time and began pushing, pulling, wiggling, tugging, and just about everything short of pounding at the dead radio trying to fix the supposed loose connection. Nothing worked. About this time I realized that despite all my preflight planning, I hadn't checked the list of squawks for the airplane that morning. Maybe the radio was completely dead and the last person to fly the plane had already reported it? There is no way I was going to perform an IFR flight with only one working radio and was seriously thinking I might have to abort the whole flight but I decided to shut the engine down (to conserve fuel and not rack up Hobbs time) and try to troubleshoot it a bit more. At about this time I also realized that the LORAN and DME receivers had been turned off by the last person to fly the plane. It struck me as interesting since I never turn off any of the avionics individually - that's what the avionics master switch is for. After a couple more minutes of scratching my head I finally realized that the number 2 radio had simply been turned off (but not the number 1 - go figure). It seems like a dumb thing to overlook but then again I've never had this happen to me before and so I wasn't looking for it. Also the off switch is integrated into the volume knob (twist all the way left and it clicks off) and so it's not at all obvious just looking at the radio. IFR Clearance Finally it was time to get going! Or so I thought. Once again I started the engine and then radioed up Oakland flight service station to pick up my clearance. The guy said that Palo Alto tower would handle that for me and to contact them. I explained that they were closed and could he please help me. But no, he just gave me two frequencies for Norcal approach and said I should talk to them. So I tried the first frequency. Because I was still on the ground, I could hear pilots transmitting but I could not hear the ground controllers since there was no line of sight between me and the ground station. Same thing on the other frequency. I called Oakland FSS back up and explained my dilemma and asked again if he could he please help me. He told me to standby. After a couple minutes he gave me a phone number and told me to call it. So I shut down the engine *again* and dialed the number. By this time it was about 6:55am. The guy on the phone told me to standby. Standby was quickly becoming the word of the day. I could faintly hear him talking to someone else and it they seemed confused like they had never delivered a clearance to anyone before. Finally he came back and said he had a clearance for me. I copied it down and then read it back, misreading one nav fix. He got all frustrated and started to correct me but then he must have realized it was finally 7:00am by then and that Palo Alto tower was open. An excuse to get rid of me! Which is exactly what he did - told me to contact them and then he hung up before I could say anything. Nice guy. Maybe it was the end of his shift or something. Anyway I got the clearance from Palo Alto, read it back without any issues, and finally was rolling down the runway at 7:07am. En route Then I flew through the clouds! I had logged a small amount of actual IMC during my instrument training in Kingman due to a freak rainstorm that came through but this was my first time solo in the clouds. As expected, I broke out a minute later to find the sun in my eyes and nothing but a flat sheet of whiteness beneath me. The next part of the flight wasn't very eventful other than my directional gyro precessing like mad and making it hard to fly hold a constant heading. ATC was giving me vectors all the way to Scaggs Island VOR and I honestly lost track of where I was. Radar didn't lose track of me though: Divert Little River airport is right on the coast right where my path hooks a 90 degree right turn. Obviously I didn't make it to Little River because there was a solid layer of clouds between me and the airport and there are no instrument approaches available to get me down through the clouds and into a position to land. I did see one hole in the clouds that I could have tried to dive through but it didn't seem like a wise idea and so I diverted to Ukiah, my alternate airport. The controller was helpful at giving me vectors around that firefighting TFR that was smack between the two airports and I cancelled IFR a few miles north of Ukiah and did a visual approach to land on runway 15. I bought fuel in Ukiah. 55 gallons of it. That means I had 5 gallons left which is less my required 45 minute reserve for IFR flight. There were a couple contributing factors to why this happened. First, I estimated the amount of fuel incorrectly to begin with. Instead of 40 gallons I probably took off with 20-25 gallons. The "fingers wet" method of checking fuel works okay on a Cessna 172 but doesn't seem to work on the Cessna 177. The two planes must have differently shaped tanks. Second, all my ground delays cost me about .3 extra hours that wasn't in my flight planning but realistically this is pretty minor compared to my first mistake. Bike Ride The bike ride was exhausting but good. Very hilly - 58 miles and 8700 feet of climbing. I may do a separate write-up for it later VFR flight home It should go without saying that after a night of no sleep and a big bike ride, I was tired and just wanted to get home. These are not ideal conditions to be flying in. Date: July 16, 2008 Aircraft: N26WG - Cessna 177RG Origin: Ukiah Destination: Palo Alto Duration: 1.2 hours I didn't want the overhead of flying IFR. I didn't want to file a flight plan or get a clearance or have to be routed out of my way and so my flight home was good old VFR. After taking off from Ukiah I dialed the LORAN to Half Moon Bay airport and flew direct. Obviously that wasn't my destination but it was the easiest way to get into the air and established on a heading that would allow me to skirt around the SFO class bravo airspace. As I approached Half Moon Bay I descended to 2500' and was sure to stay at least 10 miles away from SFO to keep out of their airspace. Once I crossed the SFO 230° radial I was able to turn towards Palo Alto. During this whole process I relied heavily on the LORAN. I was pretty far out over the water although I couldn't see it because there were clouds between me and it. Once I turned eastward and crossed the ridgeline it was all clear though and my approach and landing went without incident. Lessons Learned Don't pick up IFR clearances from Oakland FSS over the air. Next time I will call a briefer via phone and only use the FSS as a last resort such as if I was departing from an airport without a payphone and no cell phone reception. When the fuel tanks on the Cessna 177 are full to within a couple inches of the top it means you only have 20-25 gallons of fuel! Judgment and aeronautical decision making are really affected by fatigue. I already "knew" this but now I have experienced it with my flight home. I really didn't do any flight planning and I took a sketchy route back into the bay where I had controlled airspace above me and clouds (and then ocean) below me. And I wasn't talking to Norcal Approach because I was tired and just wanted to get home and not deal with them. The preflight was good even with the radio snafu. It was an unexpected problem and those will be inevitable. I dealt with it fine and didn't get overly frustrated. Finally, I wish I had at least done a practice IFR approach into Ukiah instead of cancelling IFR and going visual. I need those instrument approaches to stay current and the more practice the better! For all the overhead of flying within the IFR system I should make the most out of it for myself. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
12:00 am	Flike Tomorrow I am flying from my home base of Palo Alto (KPAO) to Little River (KLLR) in Mendocino County. I will bring my road bicycle with me in the plane and go for a 50-60 mile ride before flying back home. This will be my second flike. Note that I didn't coin the term "flike" but I read about it here and decided the term was too fitting to pass up. I plan for an early departure, around 6:00am, and the Bay Area is supposed to be completely socked in with an 800-1000 foot overcast layer that won't burn off until 9 or 10am. I will obviously have to depart IFR which means heading out of my way to the East to avoid the SFO and OAK terminal areas. The forecast at my destination is calling for clear skies all day though. The flight plan I will file is 166nm compared to a great circle distance of just 133nm but I'm hoping that ATC can give me vectors to cut a few corners. The one problem with my proposed route is that it cuts straight through a wildfire TFR. I plan to get around this by cancelling IFR at the Santa Rosa VOR and then tracking the 280 radial out to the coast and following that all the way to my airport. I drew the outline of the TFR on my sectional chart so it shouldn't be any problem to steer around it. For the return trip I will file an IFR flight plan although I expect clear skies the whole way. This will give me more practice working within "the system" and also I'll get to pick up my clearance at a non-towered airport for a change. Skills to practice this flight: * Flying in actual IMC (although I'll probably break out on top in under 5 minutes) * Filing a composite flight plan * Picking up an IFR clearance via a FSS (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008
11:28 pm	Intro Hello, my name is Ben and I'm a pilot. Right now I'm just a low hour private pilot but I'm working on my commercial ticket soon to be followed by CFI. I will use this space as a companion to my log book, entering details about my flights that are impossible to capture in a half inch line item but. Also I want to post concepts that I am learning or interesting web sites I run across to help reinforce these things in my brain and maybe even to be of use to others. Where I am now: * Private pilot, airplane single-engine land * Instrument rating * 187 total hours (mostly Cessna 172) * 14 hours tailwheel (Citabria 7ECA and 7GCBC) * 13 hours complex (Cessna 177RG) * I have landed at 38 airports (see them here) Immediate goals: * Continue flying IFR even on clear days to practice those skills * Ease into getting some actual IMC time * Study for Commercial knowledge test * Qualify to take Commercial practical test: - Build up to 250 hours - Solo night cross-country - 10 night takeoffs/landings - 5 more hours of complex dual - practice manuevers (Chandelles, Lazy Eights, etc.) Medium term goals: * Get CFI and CFII * Take on a few students * Look into other entry level flying jobs (traffic watch, banner tow, etc.) Long term: * Freight pilot * Corporate pilot * Airlines? Current Music: Toad the Wet Sprocket (Comment on this)