1.5 Hours; 2 Landings; KGNV-KCDK-KGNV
Tonights flying adventure was to take my parents from Gainesville, Florida to Cedar Key for dinner. It'd be a nice, quick trip for dinner, and a fun outing.
The flight west took just about half an hour. Cedar Key airport has a 2,300 foot runway, with water on both ends. I overflew the field from the northeast to consult the windsock and inspect the runway. The overflight was lower than standard traffic pattern altitude, and I didn't lose enough altitude turning base to final, and was higher/faster than I felt comfortable with coming over the threshold considering available runway length. I initiated a go around and flew a more standard patten and made a comfortable short-field landing.
While airborne you are supposed to be able to call for a taxi via CTAF, but my request was answered by someone other than the taxi driver advising us she had lost her radio and gave us a phone number. Once on the ground, we called her cell phone several times, but got no answer. We set off on foot for the two mile trek to Dock Street for dinner.
Through the graciousness of the restaurant staff, we were able to get a car ride back to the airport. The runway lights were not the typical elevated type, but were inset into the grass (which needed to be mowed). For best practice, since we would be flying upwind over open water before being able to turn back inbound for land, I executed a textbook short-field takeoff and gained several hundred feet of altitude by the time we crossed the departure threshold and headed out over the water.
Winds aloft were light and variable, so the trip back was about another 30 minutes. About 15 miles west of the field clouds started building in at about 3,000 feet. Winds were calm at the surface and tower cleared us for straight in runway 7. Temperature and dewpoint were forecast to converge at 8 PM but were still five degrees apart, about two hours later the field went IFR due to ceilings.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Flight Reflection - Introduction to the G1000 for IFR
1.2 Hours Dual; 3 Landings; KGNV (Local)
Today I combined a rental checkout at University Air Center with a Garmin G1000 IFR checkout. Overall the whole process was pretty smooth. The instructor and I spent about 30 minutes in their Redbird flight simulator to get a brief introduction to the IFR procedures of the G1000, which surprisingly enough consisted of using the "procedures" key to select, load and activate approaches.
Next we went out to the airplane, which was a 2008 Cessna 172S with a GFC 700 autopilot. After preflighting we took to the air for a little maneuvering. The instructor had me do steep turns in both directions, slow flight to a power-off stall and simulated power failure.
To finish out the day I did two approaches under the hood and three landings for good measure. Both times we did the RNAV (GPS) + LPV 7, but the instructor vectored me into the approach from two different directions. The first approach was hand-flown, the second was fully coupled with vertical guidance. As far as landings were concerned, the high-wing came back no problem, the first was a tad firm, but the second may have been my best landing ever, we didn't even know we were down.
Today I combined a rental checkout at University Air Center with a Garmin G1000 IFR checkout. Overall the whole process was pretty smooth. The instructor and I spent about 30 minutes in their Redbird flight simulator to get a brief introduction to the IFR procedures of the G1000, which surprisingly enough consisted of using the "procedures" key to select, load and activate approaches.
Next we went out to the airplane, which was a 2008 Cessna 172S with a GFC 700 autopilot. After preflighting we took to the air for a little maneuvering. The instructor had me do steep turns in both directions, slow flight to a power-off stall and simulated power failure.
To finish out the day I did two approaches under the hood and three landings for good measure. Both times we did the RNAV (GPS) + LPV 7, but the instructor vectored me into the approach from two different directions. The first approach was hand-flown, the second was fully coupled with vertical guidance. As far as landings were concerned, the high-wing came back no problem, the first was a tad firm, but the second may have been my best landing ever, we didn't even know we were down.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Flight Reflection - First Flight in a LONG Time
2.1 Hours X/C; 6 Landings; KPWA-KSWO-KRCE
In the past 12 months, I have unfortunately only been able to log 6.9 hours of flight time. That's a whole lot of not-flying going on, but it's enough time for a little knowledge to leak out, and a little rust to form.
For my BIG cross-country coming up (Oklahoma to Arkansas, Alabama, Florida & back), I needed an airplane. I needed to rent an airplane, and the one I was getting was in Stillwater, but I had to get there from Oklahoma City. So I met Britton at Wiley Post and we hopped in the Diamond Star (DA40) and headed to Stillwater. On the way up, we shot a couple of instrument approaches. This is when I could feel my in-familiarity with flying, as my stomach was starting to tell me it wasn't having that great of a time. However, with feet planted firmly on the ground in Stillwater, all was right with the world.
After pre-flighting the Cherokee 180, it was time to go do the checkout. Overall, it was a pretty simple ride, a couple of steep turns, a power-on stall, some aerial maneuvering -- which consisted of releasing a roll of toilet paper and bring the airplane back around for an intercept -- and a couple of touch-and-go's. The end result was an uneventful 0.7 hours of dual, and a feeling that the skills came right back, "like riding a bike".
Once the checkout was done, one of my friends who had flown with me before, and his girlfriend met me in Stillwater, and I took them up for a quick go. For this I did some gentle steep turns, a little toilet paper chasing, and a quick overflight of the stadium. Throw another 0.6 in the logbook, and head off to the local landmark, "Eskimo Joe's" for some dinner.
The final ride of the night was a solo repositioning flight to get the airplane from Stillwater down to Clarence E Page (KRCE) in Yukon, due to the fact that it was close proximity to where I was staying, and tie-downs on the ramp were free. Since the sun had long since set by this point, it was an opportune time todo 3 night landings, and be totally VFR current for the first time in 49 weeks -- what a long year.
In the past 12 months, I have unfortunately only been able to log 6.9 hours of flight time. That's a whole lot of not-flying going on, but it's enough time for a little knowledge to leak out, and a little rust to form.
For my BIG cross-country coming up (Oklahoma to Arkansas, Alabama, Florida & back), I needed an airplane. I needed to rent an airplane, and the one I was getting was in Stillwater, but I had to get there from Oklahoma City. So I met Britton at Wiley Post and we hopped in the Diamond Star (DA40) and headed to Stillwater. On the way up, we shot a couple of instrument approaches. This is when I could feel my in-familiarity with flying, as my stomach was starting to tell me it wasn't having that great of a time. However, with feet planted firmly on the ground in Stillwater, all was right with the world.
After pre-flighting the Cherokee 180, it was time to go do the checkout. Overall, it was a pretty simple ride, a couple of steep turns, a power-on stall, some aerial maneuvering -- which consisted of releasing a roll of toilet paper and bring the airplane back around for an intercept -- and a couple of touch-and-go's. The end result was an uneventful 0.7 hours of dual, and a feeling that the skills came right back, "like riding a bike".
Once the checkout was done, one of my friends who had flown with me before, and his girlfriend met me in Stillwater, and I took them up for a quick go. For this I did some gentle steep turns, a little toilet paper chasing, and a quick overflight of the stadium. Throw another 0.6 in the logbook, and head off to the local landmark, "Eskimo Joe's" for some dinner.
The final ride of the night was a solo repositioning flight to get the airplane from Stillwater down to Clarence E Page (KRCE) in Yukon, due to the fact that it was close proximity to where I was staying, and tie-downs on the ramp were free. Since the sun had long since set by this point, it was an opportune time todo 3 night landings, and be totally VFR current for the first time in 49 weeks -- what a long year.
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