I got to do my first cross country flight Thursday to San Angelo.
I was NOT lost, but not as certain as I could have been on the way there. My instructor kept saying, "Are you sure?" and I kept saying, "So what if I'm wrong, where could I be instead?", as I looked at the sectional. We did the trip to San Angelo using 'pilotage', that is, just by looking out the window for features below and timing between checkpoints. Not lots of features in that area of the country, but we arrived ok.
This pic shows my instructor and me standing on the ramp at San Angelo; I'm in my 'fighter pilot' stance. We were almost at max weight for the airplane when we took off, as you can see, 'EB' is not the biggest of planes. What was probably funny to see was when we were going to do some take-offs and landings before we departed back to Fredericksburg. I was #4 behind a Bonanza and two Air Force Citation jets. Justin said to look behind us as we were waiting our turn. All I saw out the back window was the bottom part of an American Airlines turboprop coming up behind me. The first two landings I made were almost as bad as my first weeks ago. Justin said I was too distracted by the tower and what they might direct. So as we came abeam the numbers on the last landing, he said, 'Oh, no, you just lost your engine!', and pulled off the power. That made me focus and I slipped down to the runway for the best landing of the day. As the tower controller gave us our hand-off to flight following on the way home, Justin told them it was my first cross country. They were very friendly, apologized for all the traffic, and said I did well handling the mix. They were too generous. REALLY.On the way back, I used radio navigation, and was more accurate about our location. But we used lots of gas climbing up to 5500 feet, so when we landed, we were close to the minimums required. Next time, I'll get gas there. My instructor was not really worried, just wanted me to see the implications of the 3 touch-and-go's along with the higher altitude on the return. As he said, this was a learning experience. He assigned me to go back there on my solo cross country, but stopping at Junction on the way there and Menard on the way back, as well as another solo, Fredericksburg=>Kerrville=>Llano=>Fredericksburg. But first, we must do the night work, an hour of just take-offs and landings followed by a dual cross country to New Braunfels. Night flying gets my attention. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for me on this part.
posted by pdf Tex @ 7:23 PM
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