The Big Flying Trip of July, 2002[1]
Part I – Getting Ready
The Flying Club’s Cessna 172RG has been surprisingly absent from the ramp this past month. No, it's not another paint job, or an annual, or an AD inspection, or an engine failure (which, each, individually, have kept the plane away for about a month). Thus far, my travels have taken me up and down the East Coast, with a small side-trip to the Midwest. Except for two hiccups[2], neither of which was serious, the plane has been flawless. Most of all, I was able to visit friends and family that I haven't seen for years, and without a plane, would not have been able to trip.
The Thursday before I was scheduled to leave, I scheduled my Instrument Rating Checkride. After doing all the flying required for the rating in a month, it then took two weeks to actually take and complete the test. I got all the maneuvers out of the way before the clouds forced us to cancel our attempt (which seemed to be a running trend with people taking checkrides with a certain DE). We scheduled the completion of the exam, three approaches, for the following Monday, which only would have forced my trip back one day. The night before, my skin started to crawl when I saw the examiner’s name on my Caller ID. My checkride was rescheduled for the following weekend. One quick look at the weather confirmed that it would be VFR, so I finished packing quickly and headed to bed for an early morning departure.
Part II – The Outer
Banks of North Carolina
So,
despite my best planning, my first trip was conducted VFR. I took off into very hazy skies and as I
passed Stone Mountain, patchy fog began developing on the ground. An accommodating approach controller gave me
a squawk that stayed with me for the entire flight – including a transition
through the Charlotte Class B. After
dodging MOAs and Restricted Airspace, I landed at Dare County Regional (MQI)
four hours later. I was here – the
Outer Banks of North Carolina where, just 5 miles away, the Wright Brothers did
the same thing a century ago.
I
was proud of my planning – I landed at the airport exactly when I thought I
would. Of course, my mother showed up
early hoping to get a picture of me landing.
When she arrived at the airport, she asked, “Do you know if Tim is
here? He’s flying in from
Atlanta.” The guy at the FBO recovered
nicely; “Well, people usually don’t identify by name on the radio, but some guy
just called in saying he was about five minutes away.” Good landing. Saved face. Hard to
recognize the plane in the picture.
I
got sucked into taking the family for a flight up and down the beach. Of course, I made a stop at First Flight
Airport; while not a short field at 3,000 feet, the tall pine trees at the end
of the runway make you wish the plane loved to climb on hot days.
I
left on the 4th of July for an early-morning return trip to
Atlanta. And despite the reports in the
New York Times, I was not the plane flying 40 feet off the waves on the Outer
Banks (someone did this, I don’t know who, it just wasn’t me). Once again, I was cleared through
Charlotte’s airspace on the return.
This time, they took me right through the path of the arriving
planes. I think I had a manic
depressive controller who wanted to see what it looked like on his radar screen
if two planes flew into each other. He
sounded so board and, yet, so disturbed.
Here
I am, putting along at 6,500 feet. An
arriving aircraft is told to hurry his descent through 5,000 feet to get around
crossing traffic, 6 miles ahead. The
arriving plane spots me on his TCAS[3]
and asks for a turn to the right to avoid the wake turbulence. The manic-depressive controller responds,
“Sure, go ahead. By the way, your
traffic is a Cessna 172. Heavy. Lots’ a wake, so watch out.” You don’t think that’s funny? Sit in an airplane for 4 hours, then you
hear someone say that on the radio; you’ll laugh. I returned to Atlanta and, after waiting around for my
appointment with my DE, took off on the following Monday, freshly issued temporary
certificate in hand. I loaded up and
took off within an hour of my last landing for the flight test.
The
flight I now know best from my travels, having done it 4 times and about to
repeat it again[4], is the
4.5-hour trip from Atlanta to Washington, DC.
What I found very interesting is that, as an IFR aircraft being vectored
around the Washington Class B, I was taken right over one of the closed
airports and the ramp was filled with aircraft that, by security decree, cannot
fly. I was not taken anywhere near the
Pentagon, White House, National Mall, or anything discernable as “Washington,
D.C.”
An
overnight in Maryland, and a 2.5-hour flight brought me to Hartford,
Connecticut. On the flight up I flew
through the smoke from the forest fires in Quebec. I also flew under a jump plane.
I think the Center controller had the jump plane hold his load
until I passed underneath. Though the
calls “Traffic is clear” and “Jumpers Away” happed just as the jump plane
passed out of sight.
Let
my experience be a lesson to you – never let Air Traffic Control you have an
IFR certified GPS on board unless you become the master of spelling 5-letter
words. Especially when given to you by
controllers with thick Boston accents.
The last VOR I crossed on the trip to the dreaded “Northeast Corridor”
was over Pennsylvania. All the other
navigation I did was via intersections.
New York and Boston had me going direct to HAWLY, RIPPY, WEARD, and
other fun 5-letter combinations. My
stay in Hartford was cut short by thunderstorms that threatened the state. In reality, that’s about one thunder cell,
given the fact that there are Georgia counties that could swallow the state
whole.
I
quickly departed Hartford for a flight down to White Plains.[5] On the flight down, I heard a great exchange
over the radio:
Coast
Guard: (In a
Proper British Accent) Coast Guard 1234 request clearance through the Class B
at 1,500 feet.
NY Approach: Cleared
through the Class B as requested.
Coast Guard: (Right
Proper Git) Roger, Cleared through Class B.
NY Approach: What kind
of Coast Guard are you with a British Accent?
Coast Guard: (Foppish
British Accent – Who bailed you out in WWII?) Would you believe I’ve lived in
the US for 20 years and still have it?
NY Approach: Move to
New Jersey. It’ll be gone in 6 months.
Anyway, on reaching White Plains, I was told that I would be number 6 for the ILS, and that it would take about 30 minutes to get me in. Again, I told the controllers too much information. I let them know I had 6 hours of gas on board. I could fly in circles all day for them. So, I was faced with 30 more minutes of high-quality cross country time, the completion of the holding requirement for my Instrument Proficiency, and the reality that thunder storms were moving in and forecast to hit the airport in 30 minutes, which would mean more holding, and then holding until all the commercial traffic landed, then the commercial departures, then the cows coming home, and then, maybe, if the tower didn’t want a break, I would be allowed to land. However, I beat the system.
Me: “Approach, visibility’s about 3 miles. How about a vector direct to the airport for the visual?” This apparently became very appealing to him, being the slowest target on his radar screen. He pointed me right to the airport, the tower cleared me to land on the crossing runway, I tied down the plane, and the heavens opened up. That last bit, from clearance to rain, despite being one sentence long, took place in about 10-15 minutes. The airport did close for about 45 minutes until the storms passed.
After
arriving in White Plains, I visited my uncles, aunts, cousins, and Ian and
Shea, long time Flying Club members, recently engaged, living in New York
City. Ian gave me my first tour of the
city. Very cool place. And, the MTA only charged me $3 for a $5
train ticket! On top of it all, I got
some real New York pizza, a free refill on soda (apparently unheard of) and
tried out watermelon juice. Very good
stuff (made with seedless watermelons – Shea, Ian, and I all had the same
question, at the same exact instant).
After
leaving, 2.5 hours found me in Maryland, and another 4.5 took me to Atlanta for
a couple days, while I figured out what family members were still available to
intrude upon, er, visit.
Having thus far hit up my mother’s side of the family, I still had one family member with heretofore unvisited relatives. As a result of a few carefully placed phone calls, I took off and headed for Athens, Ohio. Home of Ohio University and the Bobcat Air Force. After spending the morning at the Flying Club mechanics’ hangar getting the plane looked at I took off for Ohio. A short flight later (3 hours), I landed at an airport undergoing runway construction (“Runway 25 displaced threshold 1000 feet. ILS 25 out of service. Taxiway Alpha closed. Runway lights inop. Taxiway lights inop. ASOS transmitter powered by an old hamster.” It actually was a nice airport with a brand new terminal building. I spent the night with the hippy-ist of all my relatives, and saw “A Beautiful Mind.” The movie would have been much better had I not known the actual story, which I won’t say here, because somebody will blame me for ruining the movie for them. It still was a very good movie.
I
left in the morning for a fun 4-hour flight to Northampton,
Massachusettseses. Or whatever it
is. I am allowed to make fun of it
because my name has too many L’s, and an OUX that nobody gets right. But it’s fun to hear telemarketers try to
say it.
The
Northampton airport is a neat little place, appropriate for a neat little
town. It’s located at a bend in the
Connecticut River, and it’s got an interesting approach to Runway 14. Surrounded by the Holyoke Mountains, it’s
3300-foot strip made me think twice about bringing aboard 60 gallons of gas (I
only took 40-ish). They also use the
field for skydiving. Located right near
an Air Force Base, I sat at a picnic table watching a C-5 do touch and
go’s. Their pattern involves a massive
4-mile crosswind and base leg and a pattern elevation of 5000 feet. Even at that altitude, the plane looks
huge. As a bonus to the trip, while I
was waiting for my ride I met a dirty (in more than one way) old man, but who
was pretty cool. He was learning how to
fly in his 60’s, having spent 17 years of his life doing nothing but walking
around the US (having hit the Appalachian Trail a few times). And I’m not a big ice cream eater, but
Chocolate Pudding Ice Cream gets a big plus.
As does indoor plumbing. My
stepsister is redoing her bathroom with a very neat design but she doesn’t have
a toilet or a bathtub as a result. Her
son (my nephew, I guess) can bathe in the sink, but I passed that stage about
23 years ago.
So,
in search of the elusive shower, and because I was stuck in Northampton (not
that I mind it at all) because of thunderstorms, we visited Gideon’s parents
(Gideon being the husband of Katy and father of Oscar, named after my favorite
brand of hot dog). Sara and Don are
very cool, and Don knows good food. He
also has premium cable, so I got to see the Robin Williams special on HBO.
Anyway,
that takes us to this morning. Having
not looked at my watch correctly, I set the clock one hour ahead. Thus, when the alarm went off, it was really
6:00 AM, not 7. That was a good thing
because I got my weather briefing and filed my flight plan on the computer as
opposed to having to bother a briefer to file a plan that was Northampton
direct to Hagerstown, Maryland. Oscar
(nephew) seems to have this thing about airplanes. Or at least that’s what he says (and he’s not at a loss for
words). So, as soon as he’s old enough
to get away from his mother, I’m going to take him flying. Just so long as he doesn’t tell his mom.
I
left at about 8:30 and got to Hagerstown at, I think, 11-ish. Washington Center did a very good job of
vectoring me to within 0.2 miles of the Prohibited airspace that surrounds Camp
David. But that’s where you have to go
to get on the localizer for their ILS.
Actually, his vectors would have put me in the airspace until he
realized what he did and gave me vectors around.
I
picked Hagerstown because that’s where I went to boarding school. So, with the thanks of the guy in the tower
and the woman working Washington Center, I departed VFR, took pictures of my
school, and then picked up my IFR clearance and flew to Atlanta, skirting some
heinous storms over West Virginia.
[1] Not to be confused with the Tripping Big Fly. Well, that’s what you get when a horse fly drinks rum.
[2] Once, while flying along, the engine, for lack of a better term, hiccupped. Just once. I’ve flown 20 hours since it did it so I know it’s no big deal. But it gets your attention real fast. The second “hiccup” was more of a scream. I was flying along in the clouds, strike finder turned on, asking about thunder storms in the area, when I flew into one. Ok, maybe it wasn’t a thunderstorm but it was a massive rain cloud. The controller later ‘fessed up, “Yeah, there could have been a little something there.” The windscreen erupted with rain pelting it, almost louder than the engine. Very interesting turbulence. And then the gear warning horn went off. Two seconds after the rain hit, there was this incessant beeping in the cockpit. Unnerving.
[3] Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System – used
to keep planes from hitting each other.
[4] I’m writing this on the Saturday after I finished
all my trips; save one last round-trip to Maryland.
[5] I think this city should, in fact, be called White Planes.