OK guys /gals..
I have only been flying for 34 years and I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer so I need to ask a question...
Real deal ...
A few days ago my neighbor needed a ride down to Grand Junction to pick up his jet that was getting repaired after a 6 figure paint job had " less then quality" work.... So I fly him down in his Skylane ( 1.75 hours -v- 8 hours driving / commercial flight)..
Flight down at 9 AM was rather smooth with a little weather moving in from the west.. I drop him off, make a pit stop and hop back in the plane for my return flight back to Jackson Hole...
Light off the motor, taxi to 11, make a left downwind departure and once out of the Delta I call Denver departure on 119.7 for FF back to the hole, get a code and climb up to 12,500, intercept the magenta line of death and hit the AP button..
Instant right turn and it dives down at 2000FPM..... I try to couple it 4-5 more times and same thing... Disclaimer : I am new to the G1000 stuff as I am a steam gauge kinda person, but I did confirm I had 12,500 in the target box and KGJT > KJAC on my screen and it was in green color...
So, I got tired of recovering from steep dives and right turns, hitting the AP disconnect button and getting the tone in my headset and decide to hand fly it home... After all, I have been hand flying my whole life so no biggie..
Denver gives me a freq change, I check in and all is well... 30 minutes or so later I get another hand off to SLC center, dial in the freq and hear ALOT of chatter,, I tried to get a word in edgewise for 5 minutes or so but they never got back to me...
Here is where it gets sideways.......
In front of me is a line for rain showers moving west to east, at this stage it is just rain shafts that I can see though and the ceiling is dropping a bit, then I see a stoke of lighinging . so I make the executive decision to not continue to try and contact SLC sector since I would be needing lower and left and right of course to clear weather so I announce 75K is cancelling FF and squawking 1200, good day... I turn down the volume to concentrate of flying the plane....
Now...........On all call ups, ATC will say "maintain VFR" and since FF is " workload permitting" and they can dump us at a whim, I assumed I could dump them too... And MY workload was greater then theirs as I needed to maintain VFR and get home safely as I picked my way through the weather..
Since I am above 10 grand I needed 1000 below, 1000 above, 2000 horizontal and 5 miles I had to decend to 9500 at times and climb back up to12,500 when I could.. Ya see, I usually fly a experimental with a Ford in it and you never know when it will blow up so I always cruise as high as possible, and even though this plane runs good, you don't know if this one will do something stupid and scare the crap out of me.. So,, I always buy the greatest gliding distance..
An hour later I safely land back in the hole and on roll out I hear those dreaded words " Call The Tower"... DAMN... First time in 34 years of flying....
I make the call and altho the tower guys are really kool, they tell me SLC center called and bitched that should have NEVER just switched to 1200 without their explicit approval.... I say sorry and thank them for not chewing me out worse then they did....
Question..... Did I really screw up ??.
Or was center ragging on me for no reason...
Thanks for all the feed back I get...
I have only been flying for 34 years and I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer so I need to ask a question...
Real deal ...
A few days ago my neighbor needed a ride down to Grand Junction to pick up his jet that was getting repaired after a 6 figure paint job had " less then quality" work.... So I fly him down in his Skylane ( 1.75 hours -v- 8 hours driving / commercial flight)..
Flight down at 9 AM was rather smooth with a little weather moving in from the west.. I drop him off, make a pit stop and hop back in the plane for my return flight back to Jackson Hole...
Light off the motor, taxi to 11, make a left downwind departure and once out of the Delta I call Denver departure on 119.7 for FF back to the hole, get a code and climb up to 12,500, intercept the magenta line of death and hit the AP button..
Instant right turn and it dives down at 2000FPM..... I try to couple it 4-5 more times and same thing... Disclaimer : I am new to the G1000 stuff as I am a steam gauge kinda person, but I did confirm I had 12,500 in the target box and KGJT > KJAC on my screen and it was in green color...
So, I got tired of recovering from steep dives and right turns, hitting the AP disconnect button and getting the tone in my headset and decide to hand fly it home... After all, I have been hand flying my whole life so no biggie..
Denver gives me a freq change, I check in and all is well... 30 minutes or so later I get another hand off to SLC center, dial in the freq and hear ALOT of chatter,, I tried to get a word in edgewise for 5 minutes or so but they never got back to me...
Here is where it gets sideways.......
In front of me is a line for rain showers moving west to east, at this stage it is just rain shafts that I can see though and the ceiling is dropping a bit, then I see a stoke of lighinging . so I make the executive decision to not continue to try and contact SLC sector since I would be needing lower and left and right of course to clear weather so I announce 75K is cancelling FF and squawking 1200, good day... I turn down the volume to concentrate of flying the plane....
Now...........On all call ups, ATC will say "maintain VFR" and since FF is " workload permitting" and they can dump us at a whim, I assumed I could dump them too... And MY workload was greater then theirs as I needed to maintain VFR and get home safely as I picked my way through the weather..
Since I am above 10 grand I needed 1000 below, 1000 above, 2000 horizontal and 5 miles I had to decend to 9500 at times and climb back up to12,500 when I could.. Ya see, I usually fly a experimental with a Ford in it and you never know when it will blow up so I always cruise as high as possible, and even though this plane runs good, you don't know if this one will do something stupid and scare the crap out of me.. So,, I always buy the greatest gliding distance..
An hour later I safely land back in the hole and on roll out I hear those dreaded words " Call The Tower"... DAMN... First time in 34 years of flying....
I make the call and altho the tower guys are really kool, they tell me SLC center called and bitched that should have NEVER just switched to 1200 without their explicit approval.... I say sorry and thank them for not chewing me out worse then they did....
Question..... Did I really screw up ??.
Or was center ragging on me for no reason...
Thanks for all the feed back I get...