Sep 10 2009

Longest Flight to Date and Back from a Blogging Hiatus

Category: Ramblings,Solo Flights — dgandor @ 5:30 am

It feels like forever since last I’ve posted on this blog, and I apologize for that!  Work has been very busy lately (which is good… job security), and although I’ve flown a handful of times, they’ve just been quick jaunts around the pattern or to Pilot Pete’s for a bite to eat.  However, this past weekend I went to the furthest airport I’ve flown to…. Sheboygan (KSBM)!  Granted, it’s only 76.9 nautical miles away, but it’s still technically the longest straight-line distance I’ve flown from Westosha.  My wife and I went up to visit  some friends who are living there for the summer.  This was actually my third attempt at this flight, the previous two tries we had been rained-out on, so this flight was due!Sheboygan

The flight up to Sheboygan went great.  I had a newer plane with autopilot and GPS, so I let the technology handle the mundane stuff.  I was diligent to listen to the traffic/tower frequency of every airport I flew over/around, to help keep the flight interesting.  Upon landing at KSBM, we picked up our friends flew back down the lake Michigan shore to see a few sites – their college Alma Mater (Concordia) for one.  We also flew over their house, which they thought was awesome and I let one of my friends fly the plane a bit, which he absolutely LOVED.  I tell ya, it’s great to share the joy of flying with others!

We parked the plane at FBO for the afternoon and had dinner with our friends and flew back at night.  The moon was nearly full, so it was rather bright as few travelled back to Westosha.  I was tempted to fly into Milwaukee’s Class C airport since I knew it wouldn’t be too busy at that time, but my wife was tired so we went straight back home.  All-in-all, a great day of flying.

I actually logged almost three hours of PIC time (2.9 hours to be exact, 1.0 hours of night time too)…one of my longest time and distance flights to date!  And since the airport was 50+nm away, all this counts as cross-country time!

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Mar 27 2009

First Night Flight of 2009

Category: Solo Flights — dgandor @ 3:44 pm

This past weekend my wife was out of town for a spa trip with one of her girlfriends, so I had some time to myself. Considering I hadn’t flown at night in probably over 5 months, I figured it would be great time to get current on my night takeoffs and landings (since I’d have to do those solo before taking passengers up at night anyway).

cool-moonI headed to Westosha on a beautifully calm and clear Saturday night. The night air was crisp and the new moon allowed the stars to shine very brightly. Of course, this also meant that pre-flighting the plane was a little more difficult and tedious as everything had to be done by the light of my flashlight. I forgot how difficult it can be to check the airplane and read the checklist in the dark of night. Even once in the plane, things are a notch more difficult. Just goes to show how important it is to properly prepare beforehand.

The flight went great. I first headed up to Burlington (BUU) for a change of scenery and knocked out 2 full-stop landings there. I then proceeded over to Kenosha (ENW), since I always need a little more practice with communicating with towered airports. I had my Mio C320 personal GPS device and the airplane also had GPS to help me find my way. I must admit, I’m pretty happy with my C320 and the NavGPS software…it worked like a charm and jived 100% with the built-in GPS of the plane. It is great for situational awareness. That being said, I realized a pilot must take the data these devices provide at face value. For instance, the tower told me to report out 1 mile right base of the landing runway. Of course, the GPS doesn’t measure distance from the end of the runway, it measures from probably the airport center. That being said, when I reported to the tower 1 mile out (according to my GPS), I was probably 0.5 miles from the end of the runway. And as usual with night flights, distances are hard to measure visually. Needless-to-say, I had to perform a side slip to lose altitude quickly enough to land near the end of the runway. It was good practice, though, as I hadn’t had to perform a slip in some time anway.

After Kenosha I headed back to Westosha and tied up the plane. I completed 4 full-stop takeoffs and landings, one extra from the required three to keep me legal to take passengers up at night for a while. I can’t wait to take Lisa up at night again; it’s so pretty and peaceful with all the lights. I logged 1.1 hours of pilot-in-command flight time.

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Oct 12 2008

First Flight with a Passenger (my wife)

Category: Ramblings — dgandor @ 1:36 pm

Three days after I passed my checkride, I had the pleasure of taking my wife, Lisa, up for my first flight with a passenger!  It was a very proud moment for me as this was my first real flight after the checkride as a full pilot.  I had taken up Lisa with my CFI before, but this was the first time just the two of us.

Since Wednesdays are our normal “date night”, I planned a trip to Schaumburg airport (06C) to eat at “Pilot Pete’s”…a restaurant which I heard lots of good things about (plus I had never been to 06C before).  Since my flight was in the evening and we’d be returning after dark, I decided to take one of our club’s 172SP’s.  The 32 nm trip took only about 16 minutes as these SP’s really haul (especially with only 2 people inside).  The ride went great, and it was very cool to fly as close to O’Hare airspace as Schaumburg gets.  I had to fly pretty low to keep under the Class B airspace, but it gave us some awesome views of huge houses in Barrington and such.

Dinner at Pilot Pete’s was outstanding…what a cool restaurant!  We were seated overlooking our plane on the ramp even.  It was very cool to see other planes landing and taking off, and especially cool to hear little kids in neighboring tables awed at the planes coming in and leaving.  It was fun to think that only minutes before they saw ME land in amazement!

The flight back was very smooth – a beautiful Chicago night.  Visibility was great.  Lisa was admittedly scared coming in for the landing at Westosha (since it’s so dark in Wisconsin)…but it went fine.  I then went around the pattern for 2 more full stop landings (just to stay night-current for another 90 days).  On the way home we talked about how great our new type of date night was – one where you FLY to your destination for the date!

This flight I logged 1.3 hours of flight as PIC.

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Jul 16 2008

First Night Cross Country Flight and Big Airport Landing

Category: Lessons — dgandor @ 5:37 pm

This past Monday night I had an extended night flight – completing my 3-hour night flight requirement as well as a night cross country flight.  My plan was to take us from Westosha up to Hartford (HXF) – 50.2 nautical miles away – and back.  Since it was night and didn’t have the luxury of a lot of land-based visual landmarks, I decided to fly through the Burlington VOR and use it as my main navigational aid.Milwaukee General Mitchell Airport (MKE) The flight up to Hartford went very well, hitting my checkpoints right on time and landing at Hartford with no problems.

On the way back, we were making great time and my CFI asked if I felt comfortable making a detour to log more night flying time since he was apparently very confident I could navigate and pilot at night.  (This was were my flight got very interesting and fun.)  I, of course, said “sure!” and we decided to fly into Milwaukee’s General Mitchell Airport (MKE)!  I was super excited as this would be the largest airport I’ve flown into.  I called Milwaukee approach and had them vector me in for a landing.  They gave me the appropriate headings and altitude and I proceeded into the large Class C airport.  Upon getting closer (and listening to the other traffic/planes landing/taking off from Milwaukee) I realized air traffic control was holding a FedEx 747 for me to land.  It felt pretty cool knowing that big jet was waiting on me and my little Cessna!  The runway (Runway 19R in this case) was absolutely huge (almost 10,000 feet long)!  Needless-to-say, we had clearance for a touch-and-go and had TONS of room to complete it (probably 3 times if I wanted)!

After Milwaukee, we skipped over to Kenosha (ENW) to kill more time.  I’ve flown into Kenosha before during the day, but at this time of night the tower is closed so it was basically a huge uncontrolled airport!  It was weird to be putzing around the fairly large airport (especially compared to Westosha) with NOBODY around.

After Kenosha, my CFI asked if I wanted to land “somewhere cool”….and as always, I had to say yes.  He said we were heading over to Camp Lake (49C) which has no landing lights, only a reflector system.  The airport would be impossible to find at night if my CFI hadn’t been there tons of times of before.  He pointed me in the perfect direction and eventually I saw a glimmer of one of the runway reflectors from my landing lights.  I plopped the plane down on the turf runway and even saw a coyote run off as we came to a stop.  It was VERY odd but cool to land at such a seemingly remote/dark airport…kinda scary even!  After turning around and taking off again, we knew I had enough time to finally head back to Westosha.  The last landing of the night went great and it was the end of a very fun night!

This lesson/flight I logged 2.2 hours of night flight time.

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Jul 01 2008

First Night Flight and More Hood Time

Category: Lessons — dgandor @ 6:19 pm

Yesterday I had my first taste of flying at night.  It was the coolest/freakiest flying I’ve done so far!  My CFI and I started the flight around dusk so I could also get in some more “hood time” and practice IFR flight in case I ever got stuck in the clouds (plus there’s that 3 hour simulated instrument requirement too).  After taking off from Westosha, I slapped on the visor and proceeded to putz around by the instruments for half and hour.  By that time, it was night and my CFI had me approaching Galt Airport (10C) in Wonder Lake, Illinois.  Re-adjusting after hood time takes me a little time to catch my bearings again, but now that I had to reorder myself at night was especially challenging.  I was surprised at how close everything seems at night, the lake (Lake Michigan) seemed only a few miles away (when in actuality it was more like 30).  My CFI said to run the landings “cookbook style” and I hit my usual checkpoints for power, pitch, and flaps for the base leg and final.  The runway snuck up on me pretty quick right at the end, but I was able to flare enough to make actually a quite soft landing.Night Flying

We worked the pattern at Galt 7 more times before heading back to Westosha.  Westosha is replacing it’s runway lights later this summer, and thank God for that!  Apparently some of the underground wiring is faulty and only 3 of the 14 runway works were operational.  Needless-to-say, it was crazy fun/hard to land really only seeing the 30 feet in front of my landing lights.  I managed though and got in 8 total landings at night.  I’ll finish the last 2 required landings during my dual night cross country soon.

Flying at night was definitely an experience, something very beautiful and peaceful about the whole thing.  I can’t wait for the cross country!  This lesson I logged 1.6 hours of total flight time, 0.5 with simulated instrument flight.

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