I’ll give you all a moment to hum some Aerosmith and get that out of the way.
Yesterday I broke a horrendous 2+week no-flying streak. Was out of town for Christmas, and then my first scheduled flight last Wednesday got canceled because the city of Atlanta decided to enforce the area I’d been parking for work for, oh, eight months. Since they towed my vehicle, that made it a bit difficult to get out to PDK to fly. But I had already scheduled a larger block for Saturday afternoon, a time to do my first cross-country flight. This flight would also have a second purpose; to go up to Chattanooga, TN and deliver some Christmas presents for my niece, since my brother wasn’t home for Christmas.
First things first, it was COLD Saturday. Below freezing all day long, and here I am with just my motorcycle to get around on. Arrived at PDK a bit late, with some preliminary flight planning in hand. I had planned a direct route to CHA, which was made easy since PDK has a VOR on-site and CHA has one nearby. Simple matter of planning to fly a radial from Point A to Point B. My plan still needed some tuneup- most notably, I’d neglected to account for magnetic variation. Still, after 45 minutes or so, we had a presentable plan. Scott then called while I listened in to file the flight plan and get a weather briefing.
Out on the ramp, I preflighted the airplane and then called my brother to let him know what time to expect us in CHA. In the cockpit, 546 let it be known that she wasn’t a fan of the cold weather, but after a few tries, she fired up. A quick taxi out, runup complete… well, oil temp is still low. So we sat for a few minutes until the engine had warmed up sufficiently. On takeoff, the stiff headwind made for an impressive climb rate, but a less-than-impressive groundspeed. At my planned cruise altitude of 4500′, the air was substantially bumpy. I fought it for some time, but eventually surrendered to Scott’s recommendation to climb to 6500′. Up there, the air was far smoother, and the airplane much less work to fly.
Along the way, I also got an introduction to en route radar service. Once we’d got clear of the PDK class D, we dialed up the Atlanta center frequency and requested flight following. This is an elementary level of radar service- we still fly under VFR and navigate on our own, but the controller gives us traffic advisories.
The next new challenge for this flight was working in the class C airspace around Chattanooga. Rules for entering are similar to class D- two-way radio comms are sufficient. However, the size of the airspace is larger, and there’s an additional step between you and the tower- the Approach controller. If we hadn’t been utilizing flight following, it would have been our responsibility to dial up Approach inside the outer area. However, in this case, the Center controller simply gave us instructions to change to the Approach frequency at the proper time.
Approaching CHA, I was set up well to fly a nearly straight-in approach, and since there wasn’t any other traffic around, that was what I got. It’s a bit challenging to know where to drop flaps for the straight-in; in a normal pattern, I start my descent abeam my touchdown point, but that reference is of course lost if I don’t fly a downwind leg. But I flew the pattern fairly well, and made a nice landing.
My brother was waiting in the parking lot, so I let him in, introduced him to Scott, and we walked out to the plane to retrieve the gifts. Back inside, after a short discussion, we elected to visit the nearby Rib & Loin for a small lunch. This was good for me, as I’ve not yet found a decent BBQ place in Atlanta. (though I have some recommendations to check out) Back at CHA, I paid for the top-off and ramp fee, we did a quick weather brief and some planning, and hopped back in the plane.
Here was another crash course- when I contacted ground, the instructions I got back were phrased differently from what I’d heard at PDK or LZU, and the controller admonished me for not reading them back correctly. Scott informed me that this was because CHA did modified IFR clearances for departure, and thus the readback requirements were more stringent. I then proceeded to get on the wrong taxiway, but we made it to the runway OK, and before long, we were headed home.
This time, the stiff headwind that slowed us down became a lovely tailwind, and once we were at altitude, we worked up to nearly 150 knots groundspeed. As such, the trip home went quickly. Along the way, Scott had me get out a sectional and attempt to figure out our location based on landmarks. It took me a few minutes, but I got it narrowed down to a general area. We proceeded on course to PDK- again, made easy thanks to the on-location VOR- and before long I was in the pattern for 34. Here the wind got me, and I ended up way below slope at the end of my base turn, and I actually had to level out for a bit on final, but once I got back on slope, I came down for another decent landing.
Back in the (WARM) office, we debriefed the flight. I still have to solo at PDK… maybe later this week will be the right time for this. We’ll just have to see!
