Two new airports

Goals:

• More practice at a towered airport.
• Get signed off for solo landings at AKQ and PHF.

Flight:
Today I rode in the back during Husband's BFR -- he did a good job, and it was neat, but I'll leave the details to his post. One point of advice: look ahead, not out the side window, when someone is doing Dutch rolls.

After that, Chuck and I went up to make sure I could find and land at AKQ and PHF (towered) so's to add two more airports to my 25-nm limitation. We departed 31 and left out to 247, as was indicated by my DR calculations. I climbed to 2500', where the winds were supposed to be 250@26 (according to RTFP at 7:45 this morning for a 10 am departure, and it was now 10:30). I was expecting a measly groundspeed of 78 kts going down to AKQ, and the GPS was showing 90+. I used power and trim to get to an IAS of 117 mph, which is what the numbers in the nav log were based on.

Then Chuck had me use the E6B to do some figuring. Outside temp at 2500' was 10C, so I plugged that in. Next, to determine true airspeed (TAS), you find calibrated airspeed (CAS), for which we substituted IAS, on the wheel and read off the corresponding TAS. I left my notes on this in the car, so I'm not sure exactly what that came out to -- something like 119 kts. So, 119 kts with a nearly direct headwind of 26 kts means a ground speed of 93 kts. So my time value would be wrong, and if it was more than a 15 minute leg, we would have reworked the numbers.

But the angle was wrong, too. I don't know whether it was (1) the wind wasn't where it had been predicted to be 3 hours earlier or (2) the headings coming out of RTFP in fact are correct and I'm doing something fundamentally wrong in my by-hand calculations; my 247 took us well west of the field, west of Waverly even.

So when I knew for certain (based on landmarks) that we were going to be passing the field off to the side, we did a VOR check. I had determined before leaving that the ORF (to) 105 and FKN (to) 190 VOR radials intersect right over the field. So we turned to a heading of 090, knowing we were south of the 105 radial and headed back east. I then tuned in FKN and waited for the needle to center. We could see the airport just out the right side of the plane, and I switched our lonely single VOR indicator back to ORF to cross check and it was close.

Great. Good enough for government work. Next I was cleared by Chuck to land at AKQ. I had already dialed in the ASOS and it said the winds were variable and the altimeter setting was a full in-hg higher than JGG. As we fley just past the approach end of 20 while messing with the VORs, I could see the wind cone favoring 20 at that time. I flew away from the airport while I descended, then turned to the right to get on a 45 for left downwind for 20.

With a 9-kt wind at my back, I deliberately turned base early, crabbed along, and had a relatively short final that took a relatively long time! It wasn't one of my better landings recently -- the strong direct headwind and slooow progression of things threw me off a little, and so I flared to early and just waited seemingly forever for the plane to settle onto the runway, and that settle happened from a few inches higher than would be termed graceful, so it was more of a plop. No bounce, a little shimmy, but it was ok.

I back-taxied and we departed 20, then turned northeast to head toward Aberdeen and PHF. Along the way we discussed initiating contact with PHF, what to use as a reference when giving our location, etc. I checked ATIS and received information Mike; PHF was landing 20 (6000', the usual GA runway) and 25 (8000', for commercial and military traffic) today. The ghost fleet a few miles up-river is flagged on the sectional for use as a VFR landmark when talking to controllers, and I probably should have used that but I used Aberdeen anyway. Coming in over Aberdeen guaranteed clearance of Fort Eustis' airspace.

I hailed him at ~9 miles south of the field over Aberdeen, inbound for landing. He instructed me to set up for left traffic on 25 -- the runway nearer to us -- and report midfield downwind. He also added the wind and altimeter info; dang it, I forgot to tell him that I had info Mike. We heard him talking to a helicopter that was working 20, instructing him to stay north of (taxiway) delta, the taxiway along 25 on the 20 side. Landing on 25 would be neat; I tried to imagine what that huge of a runway was going to feel like in our dot of a plane but couldn't, despite having landed there in 172s with Husband many times in the past!

Crossing the river, PHF stands out pretty well. It's the huge V-shaped clearing! As we neared the airport, I turned right to get onto downwind, and just before I reached midfield the controller, who must have been bored this day, contacted me first and said I was cleared to land on 25 and hold short of 20 (7500' down the runway!). I repeated the clearance, then pointed out to Chuck that I had been given a LAHSO, in which student pilots aren't allowed to participate. He said it would be ok since he was there, but when I come back by myself to either announce when I make contact that I'm a student so they won't issue it or to decline it if it is issued.

When the controller had called me with the landing clearance, he referred to me as "November eight eight." That caught me off guard, and I didn't respond immediately. I had a good inkling that he was talking to me since the helicopter's ID sounded nothing like mine and there was no one else he'd be clearing right now for 25, let alone on the frequency at all. He called back again, and this time I responded by accepting the clearance for 35388 (just to be sure he meant me).

On base I felt I was doing good and Chuck said, "Well there's a reason to keep a high pattern!" I quickly scanned to see what he was talking about and didn't see anything. Then he pointed out that we were flying over power lines, probably not more than 200' below us, if that much. I turned final and wondered briefly where I'd be expected to turn off the runway, and therefore where I should aim to touch down. I decided that the numbers, as usual, were prudent, and if necessary I could speed right along down the runway.

It was pretty neat to go in there. It's hugemongous! I think the landing went well, but I don't really remember it very well. Had it not been for the nosewheel shimmy, I could have made the early taxiway turnoff. Instead, as I rolled past it, the controller told me to take Golf (the next one) and switch to ground. I repeated that, and Chuck suggested that for that instruction I should abbreviate it to "388, wilco." For a busy airport, it would make a difference for the airway clutter.

That does lead me to wonder whether, had I slowed enough to make that first turn off, could I have taken it or must I only exit the runway when/where instructed to do so?

I cleared the runway, cleaned up the plane and switched to ground. I called them and asked to taxi back for departure, and should have but didn't tell him where I was. I should have said, "Newport News ground, Skyhawk 35388 on Golf, request taxi for departure." Given the slow day, I'm sure he knew where I was, since I wasn't a helicopter in the air at the time, and he told me to take delta back to 25. He also called me Cherokee. Doesn't sound much like Skyhawk, but given the lack of traffic and the fact that any assumptions that might be made about Cherokee v. Skyhawk for that runway or my departure would probably be okay, I just taxied away.

The engine seemed a little rough to me during the taxi, and when Husband had started up this morning it was behaving oddly (carb ice), so I elected to do another run-up. It went fine.

I hailed the tower and told him I was ready to depart. He asked how I wanted to depart. To save a round on the radio, I could have initially said, "Newport News tower, Skyhawk 35388 is ready to depart, would like to depart VFR straight out." He cleared me to depart 25, and I went back simply with "Roger for 388." This earned me a correction from Chuck. Always, always fully repeat clearances to land and clearances to take off. Period. Other stuff can be abbreviated or not repeated, but clearances are a must.

Taking off from PHF was even more interesting than landing. I could see the end of the runway for most of the takeoff! It was great. I felt like a tiny little bug. Just before we reached the river, the controller came on with "Frequency change approved." I had already determined where I would call him to say I was beyond his airspace, but he beat me to the punch on everything today (which was actually nice for me, since I'm still a little tentative about when to say what). I acknowledged and wished him a good day, then started the plan for getting to JGG.

Initially we were going to go back to the southern shore of the James and cut up on the west side of the power station, but thought it would be a good practice to overfly Fort Eustis airspace (which tops out at 2500', I think -- something around that) and talk to them. So I turned up-river and tuned them in. After listening to silence for a few seconds to be sure it was clear, I advised, "Felker tower, Skyhawk 35388 is overflying your airspace at 2600' over the dead fleet." This was not required, since I wasn't in their airspace, but Chuck called it a "good citizen" contact; if it was a busy tower, we'd leave them alone, but they didn't seem to have anything going on, judging by the calm freq and the fact that there were no military helicopters in sight.

Anyway, a nice lady came back with a "Good afternoon, 35388" and then followed with something like "proceed as described," then gave me the local weather info and advised that if I needed any assistance that I could call Norfolk approach. And she sounded like she was smiling, which made me smile, too :)

After that it was a bumpy final (direct left crosswind) with a left-of-center touchdown (the crosswind disappeared below the trees and I didn't anticipate that).

And now I have two more airports that I can go to all by myself, one of them towered!

Discussion:

1. Talking through things: I was very talkative on this flight. Don't know why... But it was mainly me talking about what I was doing. Things like "I see the airport, time to start descending, check the mixture, turn on landing lights, gonna descend a little faster than usual so I'll pull the throttle out more..." and so forth. Chuck kinda laughed at the end of it and said to keep that up and to do it on the checkride for two reasons: (1) The examiner will know what I'm thinking and why I'm doing things without having to ask, and (2) the more I talk, the less the examiner can!


2. Winds not as expected: I was surprised at how far from my expectations the winds were when we got up there. That took me aback and I got a little worried; my planning went out the window (not literally). The groundspeed issue can be worked out, and while it was unsettling to have to think about reworking those numbers and dividing attention between the E6B and the traffic scan for the amount of time it would take to redo it all, it would be doable. Wind direction, however, I don't know that I could assess very well. Well, I suppose that if I used the groundspeed indication on the GPS, I could change my heading until it was the slowest, and that would be a full headwind, right? Other than that, how do you know?

Self-Assessment: .

Flying
• Preflight, taxiing, normal/short-field/soft-field takeoff: Good.
• Maintaining airspeed, stalls, slow flight (VR/IR), maintain/change attitude/altitude/heading by instruments: Good.
• Recover attitude, altitude, heading by instruments: Acceptable.
• Forced landing: Good, need more practice.
• Forward slip:: Dunno, needs more practice.
• Pattern, normal landing, directional control after landing: Good.
• Radio work: Needs practice.
• Crosswind landing: Improved.
• Short-field/soft-field landing: Improved.

Navigating
• ADF: Okay for an intro, needs practice.
• VOR: Needs practice.

Next: Wednesday at 10 am I've got the plane reserved for the solo x-c.

• Radio.
• Practicing everything.

Hours logged this flight: 1.5
Hours logged total: 31.4
Instrument hours logged this lesson: 0
Instrument Hours logged total: 1.3
Take-offs and landings this flight: 3
Take-offs and landings total: 87 (this number seems wrong... must check logbook)
PIC hours total:: 7.8