Wow, only five days since my last flight… maybe the sporadic January days are truly behind me now. Overall, I’m starting to get the feeling that I’m on the home stretch here… I’ve gone and soloed both in and out of the pattern, and after today, I’m all set to go do a solo cross-country and work on getting that requirement knocked out. (”That requirement” being five hours of solo cross-country time)
For today’s flight, Scott instructed me to plan a flight to an airport of my choosing, at least 50 miles from PDK. In a sense, this was a pleasant change; earlier portions of training were necessarily regimented to a certain degree; fly here, do pattern work, fly home, go to the practice area, perform three steep turns, etc. Suddenly it was all up to me. I decided that one additional self-imposed requirement would be that my destination be an uncontrolled field. We’d performed a fair amount of pattern work earlier at small fields, but that was mostly before I got over my radio stage fright. Since then, nearly all of my pattern work had been done at towered fields, and as a result, I felt it best that I go somewhere where I’d have to learn to talk in the blind.
I settled on KRMG in Rome, GA, slightly over 50 miles from PDK. My flight path up there was made a bit more interesting thanks to Dobbins ARB in Marietta- flying straight from PDK to RMG would have run me through their airspace, and while that’s not a problem if one gains permission, I elected to challenge myself a bit by throwing in a dogleg around the airspace. I’d previously flown to Chattanooga, but that was a simple direct-follow-the-VOR-needle flight. This time, I was going to fly to RMG without the benefit of any fancy stuff- no VOR, no GPS. I selected several checkpoints to check my progress, and even scouted the area on Google Earth to get an idea of what I’d be looking at.
Over at PDK, Scott and I reviewed my flight plan and the route I’d chosen, a conversation liberally sprinkled with questions about airspace rules, information found on the sectional, and other little tidbits that I’ll need to know. My planning passed muster, and then I had my first experience filing a flight plan and getting a weather briefing. (that guy talked fast, even after I told him I was an idiot student) Today’s weather could hardly have been better- clear skies all around, light winds, great visibility.
After an uneventful taxi (save for me trying to get taxi instructions on the tower freq), we were airborne and headed northwest. By the time I reached my planned altitude of 6500′, I was already nearing my first checkpoint, a small private strip north of town. I was unable to get it in sight- probably hiding under the nose- but I knew that I could expect to pass overhead when RYY was off my left wing, and my proximity and heading to Lake Alatoona confirmed this, so I made my turn towards RMG. The rest of the flight was uneventful; I hit my checkpoints as expected, though a little late, as my cruising airspeed was lower than I’d planned. Given the fact that I was navigating only by ground references, I was a bit surprised when RMG materialized almost directly off my nose- I was far more accurate than I’d expected.
The plan at RMG was to fly around in the pattern a bit and practice short- and soft-field landings, but first I had to get past an inexplicable return of radio stage fright. Come on, just key the mike and talk already… eventually, I did get to the point where I made calls maybe about half as often as I should have… I need to do this more and get it ingrained. Meanwhile, my first time around was ugly. I got in too tight on downwind, and the resulting tight pattern had me end up way high turning final. Despite pulling the power out, as I approached the runway it was clear that this one wasn’t going to work… time to go around. This time I flew a bit further out, and though I again came in high, I was able to save it for a touch & go. Next time around was high again, and as I powered up to go around, I realized that I hadn’t ever put in full flaps… ok, get it together. Next time around was far better; I was on slope as I turned final, got a little low on short final, but ended up with a nice touchdown. In a valiant attempt to pretend I was doing a soft-field, I flew down the runway with the nose in the air a bit before climbing out again.
Thereafter, things were much better. I still wasn’t talking on the radio as much as I should have, but I quit coming in ridiculously high and was looking like I had some idea what I was doing again. After a few more circuits, I headed for home. I’d only gone a few miles before Scott sprung the (expected) surprise.. ye gods, PDK was closed and I needed to divert to Cherokee County! I got a pretty good position cut from the Rome VOR, and from that I got a rough heading to 47A. I did some quick mental calculations for estimated time and fuel to 47A, then set about fine-tuning my location and flight path using the sectional. It was easier than I thought; I was able to identify landmarks every few minutes to monitor my progress, and I only faltered as I got close to 47A. I got a little too sure of my heading and was carefully scouring the area ahead at the expense of either side. As I continued squinting over the nose, Scott made a few nudging remarks until I noted that the airport was at about my 1:00 position. There’s a good chance I would have flown past it had I been alone.
Satisfied with my ability to find my way around, Scott let me turn south for PDK. As we approached the airport, he raised the idea of me going out for a few solo circuits at PDK; this sounded good to me, but given my subpar performance earlier, I decided to try a few times around with Scott before taking that leap. Landing #1 was great, and things were looking good… but then, at about 600′ on the climbout, the engine seemed to cough a bit… uhh, yeah, let’s go for a full-stop on this one. This time, Scott took over on the downwind so he could demonstrate a simulated engine-out landing. It was really just as well… by the time I would have finished a few touch & gos, it would have been getting dark anyway.
Back in the office, Scott added a few endorsements for me to fly solo at PDK and FTY, and we discussed getting me on a solo cross-country maybe next weekend. I may do my long cross-country the following weekend, most likely to Chattanooga and back. I still feel I need to spend some more time at untowered fields to get in the groove of making my calls. In the meantime, there’s the question of what ramifications that engine stumble might have… 546 will be getting checked out this week, and I hope she’s OK, because 393’s schedule is invariably crowded, especially on the weekends. And I’ve got lots of work to do!
Oh, one final bit of information… as I was about to head home, I observed that I had a voicemail. Upon listening to said voicemail, I heard the voice of a man with FSS, informing me that we were overdue and S&R procedures were about to be started. We had indeed forgotten to close our flight plan, at least initially; Scott remembered as were were in the pattern at RMG and called up to cancel it, but presumably we were already overdue at that point. I went ahead and called up just to make sure everything was kosher… I don’t want to get any fuel bills from the CAP in my mailbox. So I guess that was my first experience with forgetting to close a flight plan. Live and learn…
Not sure why I remembered to call FSS and cancel… but I’m glad I did!